Where the Brook and River Meet
by ruby gillis
Summary: The continuing story of Cecilia Blythe, after Cecilia of Ingleside and Cecilia of Red Apple Farm. Cecilia has just graduated medical school and is about to marry Marshall Douglas--what do the years have in store for her? A rewrite of the previous story.
1. The Essence of Things Hoped For

_A/N: I wasn't really pleased with my last version of this story—it got to be so negative and depressing—that I had to start over. I think this will probably be my last Cecilia story, and so I want it to be the best I can do, and I hope none of you wonderful readers will mind. Please let me know what you think of the new draft; I hope you enjoy it!_

_-Ruby_

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"Ring around the moon means the fairies will be dancing," said Cecilia Blythe, tipping her head up to observe the starry sky above Rainbow Valley—a mellow, September sky, studded with stars and scarved with will o' the wisps of clouds. It was only just moonrise and the great white orb hung low-down on the horizon, encircled by a thin golden nimbus, cloaking all of the Glen and Four Winds District in an unearthly, otherworldly light. A moon such as that turned the birch trees into marble, the Queen Anne's lace that grew by the brook into a silvered filigree, and the far-off sea, seen only from the valley's highest point, into a smooth, sheeny expanse of black satin. It gave a peculiar ageless quality to those who basked in it, and the five friends who had gathered by the little, babbling brook had never looked sweeter or dreamier or more loved by one another as they did that moonlit night. They were young enough to have eyes that still glowed a-star with dreams, but enough time had elapsed since our last meeting with them that they were wise enough to know that a friendship, a kinship, such as theirs is a thing to be cherished in the world.

There was Cecilia, sweet-faced, gray-eyed, white-skinned and rosy-cheeked and with _only_ a few silvery threads running through her black, black hair, which the moon was forgiving enough to omit. They were, no doubt, the result of the very rigorous years that Cecilia had spent first at Redmond College, earning her B.A., and then at Kingsport Medical School, where she graduated first in her class, and had the added distinction of being only one of two female candidates for M.D. in the whole bunch. Cecilia, when she noticed these gray strands, told herself they were badges of honor, and stood for wisdom, and not to mind them.

_Did_ Dr. Cecilia Blythe believe herself to be wise? No-o-o—not exactly—but there were times when she looked wonderingly at her hands, awed by the power to intervene between life and death that was held in them, and there were times when she _could_ behave as sensibly as any lass of nearly thirty should. But oh—at other times—she whirled up and down the sandshore, singing, or climbed far up into an orchard tree at Red Apple Farm and wrapped her arms around its trunk and felt the wind buffet her. By spells she felt positively grown up—at other times she wondered how she had managed to fool so many people into thinking she was. If she was not entirely pleased with every aspect of her character, she at least knew her good points and had learned to celebrate them; and she was not unaware of the little cracks and rifts that needed to be smoothed over.

Her head was pillowed, gray threads and all, in the lap of a handsome young man with dark curls of his own, impish green eyes, which were beginning to be crinkled at the corners with repeated laughter, and a mouth that was as jolly and clean-cut as a violin. He, too, was five years older than he last appeared, but it was clear that he was still the laughy, jolly Marshall Douglas of the Ingleside and Red Apple Farm days. If there was sometimes a somber note in his laughter—if his eyes were sometimes clouded and far away—people did not remark on it, and took it as par for the course. Marshall had been in Europe in the war, and it had left its mark, and it must be said that the new seriousness of purpose he had earned there suited his role as young businessman and entrepreneur. People whispered, quite truthfully, that he was singlehandedly responsible for the expansion of Douglas Grocery from a little general store to a chain of successful supermarkets that peppered the Island and even extended into New Brunswick and Halifax. He was getting to be a very wealthy young man. There were some who said, a little jealously, that they had never suspected Cecilia Blythe to marry for money, and while it was true that she delighted over Marshall's success, nobody who knew either of them could really think that their relationship was born of anything but a true heart's love for one another. As they sat together on that moonlit night, Marshall was watching her face and thinking that there was really not a more beautiful girl in the world than his little sweetheart, and Cecilia, her cheek resting on his flannel-covered legs, thought quite reasonably that she _could_, in the words of the old song, 'worship the trousers that cling to him.'

Next to them sat Joyce Penhallow, _nee_ Meredith, a little plumper and more matronly than she had been in erstwhile days, but with good reason; in the room over the stairs at Ingleside slept dear, curly-headed Rose and Daisy, four and three respectively, and beloved by all who knew them. In her arms, Joy held a sleeping, flame-haired bundle of girl-child who sometimes answered to the preposterous name of Gabrielle Alexandrina, but was more commonly known as Poppy. Joy gathered her baby up to her breast and pressed her lips to her warm brow with that mysterious, holy air of motherliness that made Cecilia's heart and head fill up with secret, unutterable hopes. She had felt, the first time she had peeped down into Rose's face, that Joy had crossed a Rubicon to a country Cecilia could not yet reach. It separated them, and she longed to join her cousin in the land of motherhood. Marshall squeezed her hand, and she knew what he meant by: that it would not be _too _long before she might follow.

A little ways off, but close enough for quiet conversation, sat a sandy-haired young man with a face that was built for dreaming. Only those that new him best knew that he was also capable of great keenness and a biting wit, besides. Blythe Meredith had not changed so much in five years as to be wholly unrecognizable to those who knew him well. Currently, pride and good humor fairly exuded from him, due in part to the celebratory mood that all the Blythes, Merediths, Fords and Wrights that had gathered in the district were experiencing, and in other part to the fact that he had recently had a second anthology of poems accepted by a prestigious publishing house in the States. Blythe did not need anyone to tell him he was a poet—he was, and always had been—but he had to admit the recognition and reputation he had garnered after his first book had been published was pleasant enough. And the accompanying royalty cheques didn't hurt, either.

But the touchstone of Blythe's good humor was not esteem or success or money—it was the golden-haired, lissome girl who now stood over the aster bed, gathering the purple blossoms and holding them to her perfect face. It was his wife, Manon—Cecilia's dear friend. She sometimes thought—but never articulated, for fear of hurt feelings—that Joy had been the friend of her girlhood, but Manon the friend of her womanhood. It was Joy who had helped her over those dark days when Cecilia's mother had been ill, after little Susan had died, but it was Manon who had helped her to navigate the straits of adulthood, to help her understand the complexities and nitty-gritties of life. But loving one did not mean she could not love the other. That was the nicest thing about love: there was never too much of it. There was always enough to go around, a never-ending supply.

"Fairies will be dancing," Cecilia said, ruefully, "Is just a nice way of saying 'going to rain.' I know the old superstitions, Blythe—you needn't quote them to me. Rain is supposed to be good luck for a bride, you're about to say—you'll conveniently omit the corresponding myth about how it is also supposed to bring tears. Oh, I did want it to be fine on my wedding day."

"Mackerel skies and mare's tails

Make for fair weather and full sails," sing-songed Joy, as primly as if she were reciting a lesson for her girls. "We had some lovely little mackerel clouds tonight at sunset, Cecilia—sweet floaty pink and purple clouds so light and airy against that orange sky. I heard Aunt Rilla say once that whenever she hears two bits of gossip that contradict each other, she cannot help but believe the one that is the most scandalous. I suggest you turn that proposition on its head, and believe in the prophecy that augurs cheer—and good weather. Either way, darling, you're going to be a beautiful bride, and," Joy nodded seriously with the expertise and authority of a four-years' married woman, "All that matters is that you _are_ married. Not what the weather is."

"It will be nice enough, with or without rain," said Manon, a hint of her native accent still in her voice. It had gone nearly away since she had lived in Canada, as she rarely had a chance to use her French. Blythe and Manon had bought a cottage in Cap-Carmel, a mostly-Acadian village in the west of the Island, but Manon, her Parisienne pride intact, refused to lower herself to speak the informal, chirruping French her neighbors spoke. "It will be a perfect day, and the orchard at Red Apple Farm is the sweetest place for a wedding. Though I heard Marshall's _maman_ say that it is positively scandalous for you not to be married in the church."

"Mary Vance said the same thing to me," admitted Cecilia, "But I wanted my day of happiness to be an entirely family affair. I want to be married from home—with Dad to give me away—and Uncle Jerry to perform the ceremony—and Aunts Faith and Di and Rilla to help with the food—you girls and Trudy and Bertha as my 'maids of honor, and Romy as flower-girl. And Blythe will stand up beside us and read one of his poems and then we'll say our vows."

"Just as long as he remembers to step back before we say them," said Marshall, under his breath, and mostly in jest, though nobody could deny that there was still a dangerous current that ran between the two tentative friends, from time to time. Even so many years later, nobody had forgotten that Cecilia and Blythe had been engaged before Cecilia and Marshall had. Manon, who had overheard Marshall's remark, laughed with real mirth—she was not in the least bit unsure of where her husband's affections lay.

"Even our loved ones who cannot be there will be with us in spirit," Cecilia said, dreamily. "Uncle Jerry is using Grandpa Meredith's prayer-book to read the service, and Marshall is going to wear Grandfather Blythe's watch. My flowers are going to be roses from a bush that my sister Susan planted when she was just a little girl—mother had it dug up and transplanted when we moved from Montreal. And my dress belonged to my grandmother Cecilia Meredith, my namesake. My mother wore it when she married my father."

"It is a lovely old-fashioned dress," said Joy, with the sadness of one who knew she would never be able to wear it, herself—Cecilia Meredith, even after four children, had been tinier than Joy was after three. "Like something out of a movie—_I Remember Mama_, or something like it. But won't you have trouble feeling like a bride, without white and a veil?" Joy had had both of these things—she had been the very picture of all a bride should be.

"I'd feel like a bride in my bathrobe and bedroom slippers," Cecilia laughed. "I couldn't feel like anything else on my day of days."

"If only you weren't moving so far away, after, I could be perfectly happy about tomorrow," said Joy, with a little sigh. "Bright River is an hour away from Lowbridge—too far for a casual jaunt. All of our meetings are going to have to be pre-arranged and talked over beforehand, and that spoils the fun of things, a little. Why did you have to join Dr. Harper's practice there, Cecilia?—when Uncle Jem was so willing to take you into his, here?"

"It is hard enough to be a 'lady-doctor,'" said Cecilia, with spirit. "People _talk_ about you—gossip over you—wait for you to make a mistake and then hold it against you mercilessly, and take it as a sign that women _oughtn't_ work outside the home at all. I won't have, on top of that which is sure to come, everybody saying that I got my job simply because my uncle gave it to me. Don't chastise me, Joy. I feel bad enough about leaving everybody. Romy has cried for a week straight and I have the horrid feeling that Mother will do the same—after I've gone. She wouldn't dare tread on my happiness by crying before I go. Oh, I don't want to leave home, any more than you want me to."

"But think of the new people you will meet in your new home," said Manon, "And all the adventures you will have. You'll see your old friends often enough." She grinned, and Cecilia knew why—Cap-Carmel was only a twenty minute drive from Bright River.

Joy sighed, to show that she would lay off the subject on this, Cecilia's bridal eve, but that it was not by a long shot dropped entirely. "It's getting cool," she said, "And I'd better take the baby up to the house and put her to bed. Mother is sure to chide me about having her out in the dew and damp, but I feel that Grandmother will set her straight. Children were _born_ to be outdoors, she always says. Goodnight, you dears—I'll see you in the morning."

Blythe and Manon bid their goodnights, also, and melted into the night, gone for a walk over the dunes to watch the sea and talk. It was only Marshall and Cecilia left in Rainbow Valley, and Cecilia could not help but think about all the other happy couples who had trysted there before them. Aunt Nan and Uncle Jerry—Aunt Faith and Uncle Jem—even her own parents, once upon a time. Thinking of them made her feel like the latest in a chain of good and fortunate people, and she felt sure their happiness boded well for her future. Of course they had had sorrow—but she, Cecilia, would willingly drink of sorrow as long as she could sup at the table of it with Marshall by her side.

"This time tomorrow you'll be my wife, Cee," said Marshall wonderingly. In his voice was the delicious hint of a promise born of years of waiting, working, hoping and loving—and remembrance of a battle fought—and the triumph of a sweetheart won at last. She turned to him, her eyes like stars, and whatever was said between them can not be set down here. It was not meant for the ages, but only for each other.


	2. To Talk of Certain Things

The kitchen at Red Apple Farm was a delightful place to be on a cool September night. It was an exceedingly old-fashioned place; the low-beamed ceilings were hung with sweet-smelling bundles of lavender and tansy and chamomile; the floor was made of wide scrubbed-pine boards that had been native to the house since it had been built one-hundred years ago; and a long stone fireplace and hearth ran the entirety of one wall with a crackling driftwood fire within. A row of geraniums sat before a window in which the old glass bubbled and shimmered. Una Blythe had no use for bells and whistles and liked things to be sweetly plain, as she was, herself. Her only concessions to modernity were a gleaming white Frigidaire and a matching oven to replace the old Waterloo stove that had stood in the house since its birth. She had loved that old stove—she had baked bread and countless pies in it, as a young wife—but even Una had to admit that it would not have been convenient for such a massive wedding-feast as was being prepared in the little house in honor of the next day's nuptials. Her sister, Faith, plumper and more sonsy than in days of yore, but just as pretty and rosy as ever, reached over to open the oven and pulled out two cake pans and set them on the rack to cool.

"There," she said, with an air of satisfaction. "Nan has finished the chicken salad and here's the cake, and all that's left is to frost it and for Di to decorate it with the sugar-roses she brought from Avonlea. When that's done, _we're_ done, Una."

Una smiled. It was a mild, small smile, but deep in her heart, Una was singing for joy, and all who knew her could see that. There is a saying that any mother is only as happy as her saddest child, and since Una's daughter was brimming with happiness, Una could be, too. She thought back to her own wedding with a bittersweet pang: it had not been very sweet, because she had been such a goose about whether or not she loved Shirley, when the whole time she had, without knowing. What a waste!—but at least there would be no problem with _that_ for Cecilia. Anybody could see she loved Marshall desperately. And Una loved Marshall, too, as if he were her own son.

It had been her secret wish, long ago, that Cecilia would marry Blythe Meredith, because Blythe had reminded her so much of his uncle Walter. Una had felt that if Cecilia married him, it would make up for those little, dead hopes she had buried when Walter had died. But as Mary Vance said, there was no use trying to fit a square peg through a round hole. If it had been meant to be, it would have been; since it had not come to pass, it was not the will of Providence that it should be. Una was as much a minister's daughter at fifty-five as she had been at ten, and believed in the will of Providence wholeheartedly.

Speaking of Mary Vance—that fine lady came into the kitchen with a box and plopped it down on the table, and then deposited herself in a chair with a great sigh. "Here are the fireworks for tomorrow," she said. "I had Miller run down all the way to Harbour Head to get them. We'll set them off at the shore when it gets dark. They cost a pretty penny, believe _me_—but we can well afford them for all that. I only have the one son and he'll only be married once, God willing."

"I thought Cecilia didn't _want_ fireworks," said Faith, frowning. "They're so clamorous and noisy."

"Make a joyful noise unto the Lord," Mary retorted. "'Sides, they're the kind she likes: the little sparklers and the fountains. I heard her say once that they reminded her of fairies skipping around in gladness. Say, Una—did you ever think, when you pulled me out of James Taylor's old barn forty years ago, that one day _my_ son would marry _your _daughter? I didn't—but I'm glad it's worked out between them. Cecilia is the spitting image of you, in looks and ways, and she'll make him a good, loving little wife, I don't doubt. And it will make us family—really family—and I've always wanted that." Mary's white eyes grew sentimental—or as close to sentimental as Mary Vance's eyes could get.

Anne Blythe spoke up from her comfortable chair by the fire. She was just as fresh and pretty as she had been in Green Gables days, her skin almost unmarred by lines, except for laughy ones—and a _few_ faint others that had appeared during the Great War and never gone away since. You would never know that she would pass her eighty-fifth birthday the next year, except for her hair, which had gone from completely red to completely white. But Anne did not mind. She had never been overfond of her ruddy tresses and now she could wear pink—and wearing pink she was, from head to foot, looking for all the world like a sweet pale rose.

"Marshall reminds me of Shirley," she mused. "He's a bit more laughy and a lot less taciturn—but underneath their outward trappings they are two, good, fine, generous men. I heard sometime that women marry men who are like their fathers—and Cecilia couldn't have had a better pattern to cut her cloth by. I only wish Susan Baker could be here to see her 'little brown boy's' daughter getting married. She would have been excellently pleased. And Gilbert—" Anne's eyes grew dreamy and remembering, thinking of her husband of more than fifty years—"He would have been so proud of her, for following in his footsteps. He would have been gladder than glad."

Faith laughed to break the melancholy mood that threatened at the name of those far-away friends. "I think I'll have to argue with your theory, Mother Blythe," she said, "For Jem isn't anything like my father. _He_'s awake most of the time."

"But underneath," said Anne, "They share the same intelligence. Di's Jack is as full of good humor, and Nan's Jerry is as quick-thinking, as Gilbert was, so I rest my case. And you," she said, mock-severely to her daughter-in-law, "Should know better than to contradict your elders, young lady."

Laughter in the little house—though Una's ended on a wistful note.

"What are you worrying over?" demanded Mary, who had had many years of reading subtle shifts in Una's moods.

"Nothing really," admitted Una. "I do hope it won't rain tomorrow, but it's not that. It's just that for all my happiness it does seem like the end of things—Cecilia marrying—and going away to begin her own life. Red Apple Farm will never be her home again. She—she won't be my little girl anymore." Una laughed, feeling a bit foolish over her silly fears.

"She will always be your little girl," said Anne firmly. "No matter how old she gets. Yesterday Rilla fell asleep on the sofa after lunch and I spent a full hour watching her sleep—she still buttons up her eyes in that funny way—and she was not a grown woman of half-a-century and a mother and grandmother herself—she was my little, roly-poly baby once more. Oh, girls, aren't you glad we've so many babies in the family just now? In the States they're talking about a 'baby boom'—but I don't like that phrase. It makes babies sound so commonplace. I think of us as being _rich_ in wee little folk—having a wealth of babies."

"There are Gilly and Cathy's twins," counted Faith. "And Walt and Nellie's Jamie. Joy's three 'flower girls,' and Bertha's Tess, and Trudy's and Blair King's Sally. And Una's Romy, I suppose, counts too."

"_Don't_ let Rosemary hear you calling her a baby," warned Una, sensitive to her youngest daughter's sensitivities. "She is ten and she told me the other day she feels 'every bit of it,' with a sigh, as though she were ten times ten."

"Where is Romy now?" asked Di Wright, coming in with the sugar flowers.

"Shirley took her to the shore to see the sand-hill grasses burning," Una admitted. "I had to have her out of the house. She is so eager to help but she is at such an awkward age—she upended an apple tart onto the floor and smashed a bottle of cider for the toasts on the cellar stairs. She is really all arms and legs—she reminds me of Rilla at that age."

"She is the prettiest little girl I ever saw," said Faith, who had once been the prettiest little girl in the Glen herself. "Don't you think she looks a little like Mother, Una? Out of all the children, she resembles Mother the most, with that long curly fair hair and those dark blue eyes. When I look at Cecilia and Romy together, I think of night and day. Una, how _did_ you get three children who look so entirely different from each other? Susan was as red-headed as Mother Anne. Not even Di's Bertha's hair comes close in shade of color."

"Do you know, I was thinking of little Susan today?" said Una, more wistfully than ever—but with a fond smile, for the memory of her little girl had ceased to hurt her in the way it had used to. "She would be eighteen, and probably in a frenzy of excitement over the wedding. She worshipped Cecilia—even more than Romy does. I catch myself wondering, at times, what she would be like—would she be quiet like Shirley and me and Cecilia, or loud and boisterous like Romy and whatever kin she inherited it from? Would she have a beau, and be thinking of marrying herself—or would she focus on her career, like your Merry, Faith? Oh, dear, here's one of Romy's shoes in the pantry. How _did_ it get here? Sometimes I think I am too old to be running after such a handful of a little girl."

"I love all my grandchildren," said Anne. "And the great-grandchildren, too. But do you know I have a special spot for Romy? She is keeping me young, I think. With so many of the little grandbabies grown with children of their own it does my heart good to see Romy still small enough to sit on my knee. I can't be as old as all that if I still have a granddaughter young enough to sit on my lap and cuddle in my arms."

"You aren't old at all, Mother," said Di, lovingly. "You're only pretending at it, and doing a poor job sometimes, I must say. Let's not talk of us being old, girls. It's too depressing. Let's talk of happier things. Una, tell me—where are Marshall and Cecilia going on their honeymoon?"

"They aren't going anywhere," said Mary Vance instead, looking as disapproving as she felt. It was bad enough that her son and his bride were getting married in a run-down old orchard instead of the church, with a reception in the big Glen hall—but to not go on a wedding trip was even worse. _Especially_ when Ethel Reese Drew's daughter had gone to Florida on hers.

"They want to spend it at their 'house of dreams,'" Una said.

"That is my fault," admitted Anne. "I told her how Gilbert and I spent our honeymoon at _our_ house of dreams, and she was quite taken with the notion. She said if she was to go to Europe or somewhere like that, she would feel obligated to go out and see and do things—and all she wants to do in her few weeks as Marshall's wife is to _enjoy_ being Marshall's wife. Not tour fusty museums and old abbeys."

"Have they gotten a house yet, in Bright River?"

"They are going to rent for the first year," Una said—another sniff from Mary Vance, who felt _her_ son could well afford to do better than that. "They don't want to be tied to the place until they are sure it will work out. So many people are prejudiced against having a woman doctor, that I think Cecilia feels she may be run out of town with pitchforks."

"Some people are just stuck in the mud, that's all," said Mary, loyally. "Mrs. Joe Vickers—you remember her, don't you, girls? Irene Howard, she used to be—said to me the other day she wouldn't feel quite _comfortable_ with a woman doctor. 'And why not?' I said to her. 'I believe that they have brains between their ears, same as men do.' Maybe more, I thought, but I wasn't quite sure it was true and so I didn't say. I have never been able to lie since that day you told me it was so wrong, Una—not even a little white one. We-e-ll, Mrs. Joe said in any event, she wouldn't call Cecilia to wait on _her_. 'Fine and dandy,' I said, 'Because Cecilia Blythe only calls on _sick people_—not people who just go around fancying themselves ill. You know Irene has all those migrating aches and pains—they spring up conveniently whenever someone asks her to do something she doesn't want to. Irene knows we're 'on' to her, and she didn't say anything to that."

"It is ten-thirty by the clock," said Faith worriedly. "I do hope Cecilia comes back before midnight—I am old and wise enough to know better, but I still can't shake the old superstitious feeling that it is bad luck for a bride and groom to see each other before the wedding."

"Is it that late?" asked Anne, curiously. "I shall now say something original: how time flies! Oh, I hate finding out the hour is later than I expected it to be—it makes me plummet back to earth and loads me down with responsibilities. I should be in bed—we all should—and sleeping soundly. Or else we will be weary tomorrow—and it won't be a day for weariness."

"Well, I have finished with the cake," said Di, "And I'm putting it up in the pantry and we shall go home and to bed—and I shall sleep as soundly as I can, knowing that my cake must exist all night in a house where Romy Blythe is, also."


	3. Endings and Beginnings

It _did _rain the next morning, despite everyone's fears, but it was only a passing shower, and left the world washed clean and fresh, as if it, too, was preparing for the day's celebration. By one o'clock, the time when the family began to gather in the orchard at Red Apple Farm, the sun was high in the sky and the day had turned warm and breezy, so that the paper Chinese lanterns tossed gaily from their branches, as if nodding approvingly over their surroundings. The guests stood in a large semi-circle around two old, gnarled apple trees that played the part of the bridal arch, their boughs beginning to be heavy with little round swellings of fruit that tasted so much better than apples grown anywhere else. Cousin Teddy Wright was playing a sweet song on his fiddle—'Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered am I,' which Cecilia especially liked for the sake of that one, timeless line in it: _I'll sing to him, each spring to him_. The bridesmaids came out from the house and walked together down into the orchard, laughing, each of the pretty girls wearing a similar dress of the color of their own choosing, and each with a sheaf of whatever flowers they loved best. They stood, giggling, as Romy followed with her basket, dropping large clumps of flower petals as she went, and finally upending her basket entirely to 'be sure,' she said later, with serious matter-of-factness, that she had 'got them all out.'

Cecilia ambled down from the house hand-in-hand with Shirley. There was no pomp and circumstance and bridal glamour in that little walk. It was not a procession. They only seemed as if they were going down to the orchard as they had done so many times before. People said it was amazing how Shirley Blythe had come out of his shell after he had grown up and married, but he was as quiet as he was of old as he and Cecilia took that walk. Shirley was thinking of the first early days of his marriage at Red Apple Farm, of the sacred hour in that little light-saturated room when his daughter had been born. He had looked ahead, from that moment, to this very day, as he had held the little velvety bundle in his awkward hands. He had not, even in his wildest imaginings, expected that he should ever love her so much—or that she should be so beautiful.

Cecilia seemed to know what he was thinking, and turned her little face up to his.

"I love you, Daddy," she said. "Of course I'll have to _tell _Marshall I like him best—he's awful vain, you know—but deep down you'll always be my favorite man."

So it happened that Shirley Blythe was laughing as he 'gave' his daughter away.

Cecilia took her place beside Marshall and put her little hands in his, and the ceremony began. It was very sweet and there were no frills. The young couple had wanted only those simple words that were so ageless to bind them together. Blythe read his poem, 'On this happiest of days,' and because it was only people of the race that knew Joseph in attendance, nobody whispered, poking their elbows into another pair of ribs, that _of course_ it was very odd Cecilia should have her old lover take such a prominent part in her wedding, and did anybody _really_ think he had gotten over her entirely? Cathy and Gilly Ford's twins woke up and began to babble and laugh to each other just at the moment when Marshall and Cecilia said their vows, and their baby-chatter gave the whole affair a delicious, joyful, _companionable_ tinge.

And then they were husband and wife, and Marshall dipped his bride very low as he kissed her. The little orchard echoed with cheers and laughter. Joy's older girls had found a string of sleigh bells in the old barn and rang them wildly, the glad sound flying on the wind. Marshall reached for Dr. Gilbert Blythe's watch, which he wore at his waist, and set it going—he had wound it but would not start it until that moment when his life with Cecilia had officially begun.

The wedding feast was as sumptuous as even Mary Vance could want it to be. One long table was set up under the trees, so that everyone could sit together and talk and laugh while eating. Anne Blythe looked down the table at all the handsome men and women and boys and girls that were there. They were _all_ her family, and it was a sweet moment for the little orphan who had been—who had had nobody to love her—no flesh and blood to break bread with—for so very long. None of them would ever be able to doubt or wonder where they came from, and she could not anymore, either. _What a family!_ she said to herself, as exultantly as she had said it in the old Ingleside days, when her own children had been so small.

Aunt Di's cake had survived its brush with Romy, and it was as plumy and beautifully iced as any cake has a right to be. The sun was sinking into the western sky as they raised their glasses of cider—vintage of the very same orchard they were standing in—and toasted the happy couple. In the new-fallen darkness, the boy-cousins—and even the boy-uncles—whooped and hollered and forgot that they were fathers and husbands as they ran to the rock shore to set off the fireworks. In the orchard they watched as the glad blazes lit the sky. It seemed, to the newly-weds, who stood with their arms around each other, as if the very stars were singing for joy.

And then there was dancing. Cousin Teddy had laid by his fiddle but Una had retrieved an old Victrola from the house and cranked it until everybody was dancing—Cecilia with her father, Marshall with his mother, the babies all together in a large sweet group and even Mrs. Dr. Blythe with her son Jem. Gilly and Walt had built a jolly bonfire with some fallen apple boughs and the place was full of goblin, flickering light.

And then it was late and Cecilia was whisked inside the house to dress in her traveling suit for the drive to Bright River. She hated so to take off her sweet little wedding dress but she admitted her suit was delicious. Made of a dark green color that brought out the creaminess of her skin and the ruddy tints that _were_ there in her hair, under the darkness. A peaked little feathered cap was set on her shining head as though a crown. Cecilia let Joy arrange her skirts, Trudy set her crocodile purse over her arm, Bertha fluff her curls, and Manon stand back and snap a photograph of the girls all together. Romy careened into the room and knocked over a vase on the dresser, scattering water and petals everywhere, and in the confusion and the mess and the laughing, nobody noticed the little flicker of sadness that came over Cecilia's face. Never again would she spend a night in this room. Romy would inherit it, graduating to it from her little nursery chamber over the stairs. Ah—it had been so sweet to be Cecilia _Blythe_—but she thought that it would be even sweeter to be Cecilia Douglas. Cecilia _Douglas_—Mrs. Marshall Douglas—Marshall's _wife_.

The home folks stood at the gate to sing _auld lang syne_ to speed the travelers on their way. _Should auld acquaintance be forgot_—as if any of that happy band should ever fail to recognize each other! Still, Cecilia's eyes brimmed with tears, but Uncle Jerry—Mr. _Reverend_ Meredith—saw the glint there and broke into a jolly chorus to stave tears off: _I went down south for to see my Sal…_ Cecilia's mother and Aunt Faith and distinguished Uncle Carl, giggling, took up the next line: _singing Polly-Wolly Doodle all the day!_ For a moment the years fell away and they were the little manse children of the Methodist graveyard all over again.

So Cecilia Blythe—Cecilia _Douglas_—was laughing as she drove away from home, away from her old life, toward the new. But still, as the car rounded the curve of the hill, she could not help but look back a last time, to see the peaked red roof shining through the trees. Every light in every window was blazing—the apple trees were waving their boughs in farewell—the whole place seemed to bear her no malice for leaving. _We understand, _said the house, the trees. _You will never be gone from us—just away for a spell. We'll be here for you to visit and we shall wait for you to come, and something of you will always be here, even if you are not_. _You shall never be forgotten_. _You will always belong to us. _

Cecilia lifted her hand and kissed it in the direction of the house.

"Goodbye, dear Red Apple Farm," she said.

________________________________

Marshall had rolled the top back on his coupe, to let the night wash over them as they drove. Cecilia sat with her head on his shoulder. From a doctor's point of view, she was very glad to hear about the new safety belts that were being installed in automobiles, but from a lover and a dreamer's standpoint, she thought it a _little_ bit of a shame. You couldn't sit so close to your man with your head on his shoulder in a safety belt.

Marshall drove one-handed, with his arm about his _wife's_ shoulders. He was beaming ear to ear over the thought that this shining creature was his own—that he had won her—that he might have her with him all the days of his life. She gave a little sigh of perfect happiness, and Marshall Douglas reflected there really wasn't more for him to do in his life. He had already made this shining creature happy, and consider his duty to the world well-fulfilled.

"Tell me about our new home," said Cecilia, after a spell.

"You've _seen_ it, little goose. _You_ picked it. I would have been happy with any number of places, but you vetoed them all. I should think you'd remember every stick and stone about it."

"I want _you_ to tell me," Cecilia laughed, snuggling down in her seat. "Make it a proper story—lots of _once upon a times_—and an equal amount of _happily ever afters_."

"Well," said Marshall, as he drove, getting into the spirit of things, "It is a fine little cottage, white-shingled, with a gray slate roof. The shutters are gray, too. Our house—which is waiting for us right now—stands on a little point of land that pokes its head out into Bright River. We shall see the sun rise over the water in the morning, and set over the same water in the evening."

"And there are trees—heaps of trees—a _plethora_ of trees," said Cecilia, satisfied to her core. The marvelous trees—shady willows and regal birches and companionable, cheerful maples—had been the thing she liked best about the house. "Their branches are like a canopy overhead and you almost can't see the house from the road, it is so nicely screened in. Oh, Marshall—I'm going to get a little wrought-iron bench—may I?—and put it under those two little willows by the water. It is going to be my special place for thinking and dreaming. And you left out the part about the steps."

"I hadn't gotten to it yet. Well—there are sandstone steps leading down to a little rocky beach—just a tiny little strip of shore—and I suppose you're going to tell me next that you want to plant geraniums along them."

"Geraniums _and_ marigolds," said Cecilia firmly. "And more geraniums on the windowsill in the kitchen. Oh, Marshall, I _love_ our kitchen. I know as a career-woman I am not supposed to be thinking of things like kitchens but all I could think as I stood there that day we rented the place was that I was going to _love_ standing there in the morning and setting my bread. I'll never have store-bought bread. Of course it's very small, but it is so cosy. And the pantry—the double pantry—one on either side of the door leading to the dining room."

"Who is telling this story—you or I?" asked Marshall, in mock severity.

"You are, please," Cecilia said, snuggling down again. "Go on."

"You have touched on the kitchen and the pantry and the dining room, so I don't know what's left. There is the parlor—a big old fashioned parlor with a big old fashioned fireplace with an iron grate. We'll put Gog and Magog on the mantelpiece—your mother was quite staunch that they should be there, keeping watch for us. How nice it was of her to give us those old dogs, Cee. We'll have a sofa in the bay window nook, and that old rag rug on the floor before it. And the other rug by the stairs."

"And up the stairs…" Cecilia prompted.

"Up the stairs are three small bedrooms. Ours shall be the east-facing one, so we'll be woken by the sun in the morning. The little one over the stairs will be our shared study—your medical books on one side and my plans and records on the other. And the other one, the little one, close to ours…"

"Shall be the nursery," said Cecilia decidedly. "Oh, Marshall—I can't _wait_ for that."

"Neither can I, dear heart. Well, we've gone all over the house, except for the attic."

"But what an attic it is," said Cecilia excitedly. "So musty and mysterious, with those old large trunks. I shall die, I think, if I don't know what is in them. They are so covered with stickers from all over the world. Maybe I'll make friends with our landlady and she will let me peep into them sometime. I wonder what sort of lady Mrs. Charlotte Worth is like? She _can't_ be of the race that knows Joseph if she would rather live someplace other than our house."

"She lives over in that prim blue house on the hill, I think. She will be our closest neighbor so I suppose we'll get to know her quite well. I remember hearing that she was getting to be so old that she couldn't manage the stairs very well anymore. She was nice enough when I came to make the deposit on the house, Cee. She told me that she hoped we wouldn't be too hard on it because she loved it so, that little house where the brook and river meet."

"Where the brook and river meet," sighed Cecilia. "It's a bit unwieldy as a name, but I shall always think of our little house that way. Do you know, Marshall—I feel as if my life before this moment was a little babbling brook, small and personable and cheerful. I was going along over the rocks and under the ferns, close by home—and now I shall flow into the big river, and I hope it doesn't sweep me away. I hope I don't lose myself in it." She wrinkled her brow worriedly.

"You couldn't lose yourself," Marshall said, a little gloatingly, admiring the brightness of her eyes and hair. "I'll be your anchor, Cee—and you'll be mine. We'll go down the river together, keeping each other afloat. We'll steer our little ship through the straits and narrows, if they come. And when we reach the end of the river, wherever it may be, or whenever it may come, it will be with full sails and a hold full of precious cargo, and the knowledge that we've passed good voyage through life."

"That is almost a poem," said Cecilia, smiling. "Who said you couldn't be poetic when you tried to be, darling?"

Marshall turned from the main road onto a little dark lane that led through a thicket of fir trees. The golden-rod and Queen Anne's lace grew thickly on either side of the red soil, and Cecilia turned her face to the wind, tasting the salt from the marshes and the deep, earthy flavour of the river. Presently they went around a bend, and there was the little house, cloaked in trees, waiting for them. Marshall had arranged with their neighbors that they should come over and set a love-light in the windows, and kindle a fire in the hearth. He helped Cecilia from the car, and up the sandstone path, and over the threshold.

"Welcome home, darling," he said, and he kissed her in their house of dreams.


	4. Golden Days

For one perfect week, Cecilia did nothing but enjoy her new wifehood. How dear it was to wake up next to Marshall every morning and know they had the whole day to spend together. He, too, had left his job at Douglas Grocery Co. to the capable hands of an assistant for the time being, and so his days were free to worship at the altar of his little wife. He brought her breakfast in the mornings—for Marshall had been a bachelor long enough to know his way around the kitchen—and in the afternoons they took long walks around the river, or pushed away from the little beach in the dory that had come with the house. They spent lazy days on the water. They fished and read and lay in a tangled heap under the trees, quiet with togetherness. In the evenings they had their supper and sat by the fire, making delicious plans for their life together. Cecilia was sorry for that week to end. She would think back on it, in later years, in the words of the poet Christina Rosetti—"The birthday of my life has come, my love is come to me."

But all good things must end, and on the following Monday Cecilia found herself making her first round of sick calls. Dr. Harper, the august old gentleman who had accepted her into his practice, had assured her that he had smoothed the way for the new 'lady-doctor,' but Cecilia still jangled with nerves. Suppose she failed? Suppose no one would have her? She did not worry about winning the fight between life and death—she knew that she could do _that_—but winning over hearts and minds was a different story.

At the end of that second week, she sat down to write a letter to Joy. Of course the cousins could call each other on the telephone, and had, several times, but Cecilia loved writing letters, and loved receiving them, and Joy was much of the same mind. So the girls eschewed modernity for a more old-fashioned correspondence.

"I am so exhausted I wonder that I can see to write," Cecilia wrote. "The peace and languour of last week seems to belong to another universe entirely. Joy, _was_ I ever afraid that people wouldn't want me to doctor them? I have learned this week that when you're sick enough, any port in a storm will do, even if she is of the feminine sex. But there—I _must _be tired—I'm mixing my metaphors abominably.

"I've 'had' two babies this week, cousin of mine. Both were wee little man-children. The first was born to a rather poor family in a fishing hut on the skirts of the village; the second is the long-awaited prince who will occupy a large mansion on a hill overlooking town. The fisherman's baby is called Preston Roderick Claude George; the scion's baby is to be called Jacky. If I hadn't been a firsthand witness to their births, I would have supposed the proverbial stork had got the two houses mixed up and meant each for the other. But both mothers are safe and happy, and the babies are healthy squalling things, no matter their names, and that is all that matters in the end.

"Besides that, I've tended countless little aches and pains—given so many inoculations to so many weeping schoolchildren that I fear for our windows this Hallow's Eve; and I think I may have convinced Mr. Alexander Macneill that if he does not give up smoking his life will be woefully abbreviated, as he is possessed of a bad heart already. 'All right, Mistress Doctor,' he said, in a heavy, doleful Scots accent, 'But I warrrrn ye, your practice will pick up considerrrable if I canna curb my temper with me pipe.'

"Joy, darling, for the sake of Dr. Milne down in Lowbridge, I implore you—_don't_ be a nervous mother. You aren't—are you? I have three or four _very_ nervous young mothers among my patients and they are destined to drive me slowly insane. The worst is Mrs. Simon Sloane, who has a brood of _eight_ small children. They run up from two to ten like a staircase. She is always convinced that one or the other of them has contracted some deadly disease. So far this week little Tommy has been suspected of having chicken pox, little Jody of mumps, and little Danny of whooping cough—or _possibly_ rubella. (How she could have mistaken the two maladies, which are quite different, for one another is beyond me.)

"Today she phoned me up quite sure that three of the babies had contracted polio. There is no polio in Bright River this summer, but my conscience would not let me rest until I drove over to examine them and be sure. I found a bunch of healthy, happy youngsters, who only seemed a bit pale and wan with anxiety, and _that_, over a prolonged period of time, may prove to be more insidious than the other, imagined illnesses could be. I think I shall have to have a serious talk with Mrs. Sloane, on the topic of the Boy Who Cried Wolf.

"But for all my grousing, Joy, there have been wonder moments this week, too. I have not forgotten why I got into this racket in the first place. It is, as Grandfather Blythe once said, 'the noblest profession.' I shan't forget that, no matter how many phantom illnesses Mrs. Sloane thinks up for her boys and girls.

"Have I told you how much I love my little house? It is _so_ dear—especially with all our lovely wedding presents scattered around. Grandmother gave me that old apple leaf spread of Mrs. Lynde's that used to repose on the spare-room bed. It is too fragile now to go on any of our beds, so we have framed it and set it up on the wall, instead. Gog and Magog are reposing on our mantel—your mother's sweet china vases have a place of honor on our table—Aunt Faith's milk glass pitcher, that belonged to her mother, the first Cecilia, is full of lemonade and currently positioned at my elbow. It's deathly hot in Bright River—we don't have those sea breezes here as you do in the Glen. This Indian summer has been so lovely, but I am ready for fall. I want that blaze of color and glory, and the nip in the air.

"I went up and visited Manon and Blythe last night. _Don't_ be jealous, dearest. I would have gone to you if you were nearer. You have seen their house, Joy—haven't you? It is just the sort of abode that a poet should occupy. It reminds me of old Echo Lodge, in Grafton. When they built the hospital there they had to tear it down, and how it hurt me, even if the hospital will save so many lives. Anyway, they are well and send their love.

"Oh, Joy! I have met my landlady at last. Or should I say—landla_dies_. Charlotte Worth and Adeline Owen were born twins, about eighty years ago. But they are like Frost's poem about the road not taken—at some point along the way they diverged in a yellow wood and have traveled their own paths ever since. Miss Charlotte is a practical, sensible woman who reminds me of Grandmother's stories about Aunt Marilla Cuthbert. Miss Ada is all smiles and pink cheeks and cornflower eyes. She looks like a grownup china shepherdess. She is very shy and retiring and a bit of a recluse, I think, which is why Marshall did not meet her or even know of her when he was here before. The only reason I met her was that I went around to the backdoor, by habit—you know that we are a back-door sort of family. I didn't think. But I am glad I did, for I stumbled on two women, in a little walled garden, having tea. They must have liked the looks of me, even Miss Ada, because they invited me to sit and I did, feeling from the pricking in my thumbs that I would be hugely entertained by the two ladies—and I was.

'So you are the new doctor,' said Miss Ada, softly—everything about Miss Ada is soft and sweet. And I _loved _her for not saying "lady doctor," as so many people do, with a dubious emphasis on the _lady_ part. 'Tell me, dear—what would you call yourself if you could have any name at all?'

It was such a charming question and it reminded me so of Grandmother Blythe—that I smiled. 'I'd call myself Cecilia,' I said, thinking they would think me very boring. 'But it is my name, and I couldn't feel like anything else.'

Both sisters nodded and sipped their tea. 'Good,' said Miss Lottie crisply. 'That is the best way. Adeline and I have never liked people who are not satisfied with themselves.'

'But not _too_ satisfied with themselves,' said Miss Ada. 'We don't like that very much, either.'

'And your husband is a dark, goodlooking man,' said Miss Lottie. 'We like men to be dark, so we approve of him, too.'

'But we don't like men to be _too_ dark,' said Miss Ada. 'We like them somewhere in the middle.'

They entreated me to sit down and tell them everything about myself, and then when I sat they proceeded to tell me everything about themselves, instead. It seems that Lottie was the occupant of my little house, until two years ago, when hers and Miss Adeline's husbands died within a week of each other, and Miss Lottie moved home to take care of her twin.

'Oh, I am so sorry for your loss,' I said, and the sisters looked at each other and laughed.

'Do not be,' said Miss Lottie. 'We neither of us liked our men overmuch. Mr. Owen was a drinking sort of man, and my Mr. Worth would have been improved a vast deal if he had drunk_._'

'Why did you marry them, then?' asked poor me, quite discombobulated by such blatant honesty. I cannot stomach the idea of one not loving her husband—but I suppose not everyone can be as lucky as I am.

'Neither of us could have the man we wanted,' said Miss Lottie. 'But neither of us could stomach the thought of being old maids. Ada married the first man who asked her. _I _was a little bit more choosy, but still ended up with a bad apple just the same. When we were girls we both wanted to marry Charles DeWitt. I was engaged to him for a time, and then Ada stole him away. In the end, he jilted us both. Ada got over him, but I never did, did I, Adeline?'

'No—you didn't,' conceded Miss Ada, as though she were talking about the weather. 'You love him still, Charlotte.'

'Indeed I do,' said Miss Lottie with a sudden passion. 'Though he treated me abominably. But I've forgiven him these forty years. _I _was no picnic to live with, and still amn't, by spells. I deserved to have him taken from me, but still I hated you bitterly for years, Adeline, because you went and did it. I hate you still, sometimes, because of it.'

'As well you should,' agreed Miss Ada, placidly.

Curiouser and curiouser, Joy—isn't it? I admit my curiosity got the better of me and made me nosy.

'If you hated her so much,' I asked Miss Lottie of Miss Ada, 'Why do you live with her? Why do you speak with her at all?'

'Oh, I didn't for fifty years,' said Miss Lottie, cheerfully. 'She lived away up here and I lived down where you are, and we took no notice of each other, did we, Ada?'

'Not a bit of notice,' said Miss Ada, flicking a bit of grass from her skirt.

'But she is my sister in the end,' said Miss Lottie, as though that explained everything—and it _does_. But oh, Joy—I am glad that Romy and I _never_ quarrel. I believe my landladies may be of the race that knows Joseph—they are at least acquainted with him—but there is something ghoulish about living most of your life within a stone's throw of a member of your family and never speaking to her because of an old quarrel.

The ladies gave me a bunch of hyacinth before I took my leave of them—they are famous for their hyacinth, it seems. Their blue house is called Hyacinth House and that heavenly smell hangs around it like a curtain. They bade me come back and visit them whenever I could.

'We like young people,' said Miss Ada candidly. 'We have never liked old people—even if we are old, ourselves. Tell me, Dr. Blythe—Cecilia—do you plan on having any babies of your own?'

I told them that it was my fondest hope. _That_ is how much I liked them, Joy, despite their strangeness—enough to tell them my dearest wish.

Miss Ada and Miss Lottie looked at each other and nodded. 'Good,' said Miss Ada. 'We are very glad to make your acquaintance, then. We _love_ babies here at Hyacinth House. We never had any of our own, you know.'

Miss Lottie walked with me to the door. 'I wanted to tell you,' she confided in a whisper, 'That Adeline thinks your husband very handsome. I thought you should know. You might keep him away from her. She is very old—but she is wily. She has done it once, and she _might_ be capable of it again.'

Joy—I told Marshall—and _how_ that man preened!

There is a big orange sun sinking into the river, throwing rays of light through my study window, over the pictures of you and your girls that I keep here on my desk. I kiss your shining faces—I miss you so much. But oh, Joy! Be happy for me, for I am happy here, in my new life. I feel as though every new golden day is a pearl on a string—something to be treasured—a gift from the gods.


	5. Gossip and Secrets

Marshall's first absence from the little house cut Cecilia keenly. It was gray November—they were opening a Douglas's in Moncton and so he must go to oversee it and give a speech—but the young lovers had never been separated before since they had been married. It was just past all Hallow's Eve—the place was _positively _creepy, with the wind moaning and sobbing around the little house. Friendly though that house, where the brook and river met, was—when the wind blew like that, Cecilia could only thing of young Lottie, walking about the place and weeping for her lost love. The days were not as long as they had been, and she was not used to it. Standing in her kitchen, making tea for herself, the light seemed to go away all at once, and it did not seem natural, but as though the sun had been blotted out by—SOMETHING. She heard a thumping from above that was only a branch falling on the roof, tossed there by the wind, but she cringed in a little cold fear. What—_was­—_in those trunks, in the attic?

She picked up the telephone and made a call, and less than a half-hour later, Manon had parked in the drive and was barreling up the lane, bringing life and warmth with her.

"Cherie," she said, hugging her friend. "You look like you've seen a _ghost_."

"I have," said Cecilia—she could laugh at herself, now that her friend was here. It wasn't really possible to be afraid of anything when Manon was there—in one of Blythe's Oxford shirts and slim black pants; her gold hair wound up in a bright patterned kerchief and little red Keds on her feet. Around her neck was a string of painted beads, and Cecilia smiled to think of how the housewives of Cap-Carmel must gossip about Manon's weird fashion sense. But she still shivered a little, over that remembered, creepy feeling she had had.

"There _were_ ghosts here tonight—dozens of them—draping themselves over the sofa and lurking in the pantry. But _you_ have banished them, darling."

"Well, I am glad they came," said Manon, cuddling down on the sofa before the crackling fire, "Because I wanted to have a pajama party tonight with you. I couldn't stay home. Blythe is revising for his new book—it will be out in the spring—and I could have painted my face blue and done a handstand on his desk and he wouldn't have noticed me."

"I am glad you're here to stave off loneliness," Cecilia said. "I have a sheaf of letters from home that I was going to use to keep me company, but they aren't the same as a flesh-and-blood friend. It's almost no use getting letters if there is nobody to talk them over with, afterward."

"Talk them over with me," said Manon, snuggling into Cecilia's shoulder. "I want to know _all_ the news."

There was a letter from Una, sweet and shy as she was herself, full of news about the farm. It seemed the crop of apples this year had been the best ever, and she was sending Shirley with a bushel for Cecilia.

"I'm so glad," Cecilia said. "My pies have been _distinctly _lacking flavor without them. Bright River is many things, but their apples leave something to be desired. I'll make up a batch of pies—and some apple bread from Miss Ada's recipe, and take some over to you, Manon, when they're made."

"Blythe will be happy about _that_," Manon pronounced. "As we all know, I can't cook to save my life. I am a lily-of-the-field—I 'toil not, neither do I spin.'"

"Blythe doesn't love you for your ability to cook or spin," said Cecilia. "He loves that golden hair—and the keen, quick, sharp little mind that lays under it."

"But," said Manon, laughing, "Sometimes I feel quite awful for 'stealing' him away from you. He's grown so frightfully thin. If he were _your_ husband he'd be nice and plump from all those pies and Red Apple stews. Aunt Una is a delightful cook, and you've inherited her talent."

"It's funny," Cecilia said, laughing. "Because Mother was a lily of the field herself, before Grandpa Meredith married Grandma Rosemary. Nobody ever thought of her long enough to think of teaching her to cook before that. And now she makes the most scrumptious eats of anybody in our connection."

"She had the gift for it, underneath," Manon said, "That _je ne sais quoi_ of cooking. If you have it, it _will _come out in the end—if you don't, there's no need to force it. Who is the next letter from?"

Cecilia unfolded a letter from an envelope and scanned its contents. "Oh, _Romy_," she giggled. "Manon, I have to read the whole thing to you, or else the flavor will be lost."

_Dear Cecilia_, ran Romy's letter, _I am pleased to tell you that you will not be the only married Blythe girl for too much longer. I am getting marryed my self. To cousin Jims Anderson. Here is how it happened: me and Adele Clow threw apple peels over our shoulders and went to look and see what letter it looked like when they fell. That is how you tell who your husband will be, you know. Mine was a 'J' and I don't know anybody else with a name that starts with J besides Walt's little Jamie, who is too young, and Uncle Jem, who is already married. Cousin Jims is married too, but I heard Aunt Rilla say his wife never lifts a finger to do any work around the house, so she must be awful sick and she probably won't live long. Adele's peel fell in a J, too or else it was a C if you looked at it sideways. Cecilia, did yours fall into an M? Is that how you knew you would marry Marshall?_

_I staid all night with Grandmother Blythe last night at Ingelside. We roasted chesnuts on the open fire, like in the song by Nat King Coal. My chesnut exploeded and popped right out of the fire place and knocked over a lamp clear a cross the room. It was one of the Green Gabels lamps and Grandmother said, _Romy Blythe—you WERE born under a dark star_._ _Was I, Cecilia? Of course I don't remember, my self. _ _Aunt Faith says they have been roasting chestnuts in that fire place for fifty years and nothing like this has ever happened before except to me and that it WOULD be me it would happen to. I don't see why it would likelier happen to me than anybody else but Aunt Faith probably knows better than I do, since she is very old and wise. She has lots of gray hair and you said your self that means wisdom. I asked Aunt Faith how I could get hair like hers, and she said she got many a strand of it from spending time with me. But then she gave me a hug and a Susan Baker monkey face cooky and I knew she was not really madd. _

_Mary Vance heard from somebody that Marshall brings you brakefest in bed and Mother says now she is on the war path. Where is the war path, Cecilia? I want to know. Is it someplace in Bright River?_

_I am in closing a pitcher Dad took of me on Hall'oween night. See I am dressed like Robin Hood? I just loved that little hat. You cannot see my face because I am waring a mask, but I am smiling, underneath, just so you know. We had a swell time trick or treating with Gilly and Cathy's little twins. I went through their stash and took all their tootsy rolls, after. Grandmother caught me at it and said, ROMY BLYTHE! I told her I was robbing from the rich and giving to the poor and besides, Lilly and Viv don't have teeth. And then Grandma said—_all rite, give me one then_ and we ate all our candy and had gloryous stomack aches all the next day._

"I will never forget the time," laughed Manon, "When Romy sent me a condolence card for my birthday. It had a funereal bouquet on the front, and inside it said, _with deepest sympathies_. She thought 'sympathy' was just a nicer way of saying 'love' or 'affection.' Blythe has written a poem about Romy in his latest book, you know."

"I didn't know," Cecilia sighed—she sometimes thought back to the old days of her friendship with Blythe, when they had known each other through and through, with a pang of regret. Now she had mostly no idea what went on in her cousins' mind. His eyes—and heart—were closed off to her. Blythe, too, had changed in the war—or else he had just grown up—or else they had grown apart. But she could not say anything about it to Manon. It wouldn't feel exactly—right. She picked the next letter up, from Joy, full of Penhallow and Dark gossip. Cecilia knew very few of the Penhallows, and even less of the darks, so most of Joy's news was lost on her, but she and Manon had a happy half-hour of imagining the gaps in where Joy had left them out.

"This is from Trudy," Cecilia said, opening her last card. "Dear Trudy—how I miss her. I hate Blair King by spells for taking her away. She is such a duck, you know."

"I wouldn't," said Manon, her blue eyes clouding. "Trudy and I used to be such chums, but she has never liked me since I married Blythe. She thinks I should have stayed true to Owen's memory. I was Owen's wife for one year—I was his widow for four. I shall love him always, in a corner of my heart that is closed off to Blythe. I think she might have some pity—and not hold her head up quite so haughtily when she sees me."

"Trudy inherited her stubbornness from Aunt Rilla," Cecilia said, cajolingly, always the peace-maker, like her mother before her. "It is just that Owen's death is so fresh to her, Manon. You have another husband and she thinks that one is a substitute for the other. She will never get another little brother. That is how she thinks of it."

Manon nodded, but some of the warmth and cosiness had gone out of the room. Cecilia scanned the rest of the letter, intending to cast it aside, but she could not resist giving a little exclamation of delight over something in it.

"Oh—Trudy is going to have another baby—I am so glad! We can't have enough little babies in our clan. It's good news—the best news. I shall write her right away and congratulate her."

"The best news," Manon echoed, but her chin trembled in a way that could not be ignored. Manon was hurting over something—something deeper than Trudy's vague disapproval of her. Cecilia set the letter down on the table and wound her arms around her friend's neck.

"Dearest—what is it? What has upset you?"

"Oh, Cecilia!" Manon burst out, her eyes suddenly aflame. "It's so _unfair_!"

"What is, darling?"

"Everyone is having babies," Manon burst out. "Cathy and Nellie and Bertha and now Trudy shall have _two_—and I can't even have the one. Just _one _little baby—that's all I want—and I begin to think it will never happen for me."

"I—I didn't know," said Cecilia, stunned. She had never heard Manon speak so passionately, so fiercely. Usually she was all smiles and rainbows. There was a moody streak that occasionally ran through her, but it was as unthreatening as a cloud passing briefly before the sun—and as quickly gone. "Have—have you been—trying?"

"For two years now," Manon said, bitterly—Cecilia had not heard her speak bitterly before, not even when Owen had died.

"Why—why didn't you tell me?"

"I was afraid." A single tear streaked down Manon's flushed cheek. "I thought that if I said anything it would make it—real. I thought that as long as I didn't speak of it, nothing was _really_ wrong. It was just taking us some time. But now I know—there _is_ something wrong with me. I can't pretend there isn't anymore."

"Have you—seen a doctor?"

"I saw Dr. Harper here and I spoke about it with Uncle Jem."

"And did they say…?"

"They said there is no reason why it can't happen—but it hasn't."

"And Blythe?"

"He has been so good to me, Cecilia. 'Don't worry, sweets,' he says. 'It will happen when it happens and I like it just the two of us for now.' But I am getting so tired of waiting! And people say things—they talk of their own hopes—they don't mean to be cruel but sometimes they are. 'Manon doesn't have a motherly bone in her body,' said Mother Nan, last time we were home. It _hurt_ me—and I hated her—but she couldn't know. I told her I was quite fond of babies and Joy said—Joy was there—she said…"

"What did she say?"

"She said, 'You shouldn't leave it too long, Manon, or it might not happen for you at all. We're none of us getting any younger. And I _know_ Blythe wants to be a father—he always has, since he was a little boy.'"

"Oh, _Joy_." Cecilia felt a flash of disappointment in her cousin. Joy was the mother of three young children—she wanted everyone to have babies—she was busy and harried and she had never had been especially tactful. Joy loved Manon and would never willingly hurt her—but Joy was such a sunny person that she could not really conceive that there might be any darker reason behind her brother's, and his wife's, childlessness.

"And you're going to have a baby, too," Manon said. "Aren't you, Cecilia?"

"Yes," said Cecilia, slowly. She had not planned on telling anybody—not just yet. It was such a dear, delicious secret between her and Marshall only. Not even her own mother knew. "I am. Oh Manon—how did you know?"

"You're lit up from the inside," Manon said. "You go around looking as though you are listening to something only you can hear. You look like you have a secret—a delicious secret. I know the signs because I watch for them in myself. I've known for weeks—I knew, I think, before you did."

"We found out only two weeks ago," Cecilia said. "We had planned on telling everyone at Christmastime—when it was a little farther along. We didn't plan on having it happen so soon—we wanted to wait until I was more established in my practice—but I suppose that God works according to his own timetable, not ours. We're—we're excited, of course—and scared—and—and delighted."

Manon said nothing. Her blue eyes filled and overflowed.

"Oh, Manon!" Cecilia cried, stung to her heart's core. "This is nothing how I wanted it to be! I thought I'd tell you—and we'd be glad—but I've made you even more unhappy." She began to cry, herself—partly because she was hurt—partly because she felt she had hurt her friend with her happiness—and partly because she couldn't _help_ from crying over everything these days. She closed her eyes, and felt Manon's arms go around her shoulders—limply at first, and then tighter and tighter.

"Stop, _cherie_," Manon said, her voice firm again. "I'm a beast—I _am_ happy for you. I never thought I'd get to be so selfish in my old age. This is the best news. It _is_. It is only just a shock—you've been married so short a time—and I'm only just hurt and frustrated that it hasn't happened for me. Dry your tears, little one," Manon wiped Cecilia's face with the hem of her shirt, "And tell me—when am I to be an auntie?"

Cecilia studied her friend's face, not sure if she should take her at her word and go on. "Late August," she said, after a pause, but not entirely able to hide a small smile that crept across her face. "Just as its getting nice and cool. And Manon—it _will_ happen for you. I know it sounds very bald to say it, and very empty, but I _know_ it will. I am going to pray on it—pray _hard_—and God has never let me down yet."

"Thank you, _cherie_," said Manon, with a flash of her old spirit returning. But all the same Cecilia felt as thought a little gulf had sprung up between them, and wondered if it would ever go away.


	6. A New Friend

In the first weeks of December, there was a spate of break-ins in Bright River—the Sloane's hay barn was robbed of several tools and farm implements, and the church was found with two of its windows smashed out. The village was stunned—it was a slow, quiet place, normally, and nothing like that had ever happened there before.

Miss Lottie came down to visit the little house where the brook and river met one night, grimly determined.

"Times are changing," she said, as she accepted a seat by the fire, and sipped the cup of tea Cecilia passed her. Cecilia was as tired as the walking dead, having delivered her first set of twins that day. She stretched out on the hearth rug, but the alarm in Miss Lottie's voice kept her eyes open. Marshall came over and covered her with an afghan, and sat down beside her, stroking her hair. He was tired, too—the plans for the new store in Grafton had had to be entirely redrawn. They both would have liked to be abed, snuggled down against the cold, but it was plain to see that Miss Lottie had something to say and she must be heard, and so they put it off and listened to her.

"It is far too dangerous for me and Ada to be alone at a time like this," she said darkly.

"Oh, Miss Lottie," Cecilia cried, trying to soothe her friend's ruffled feathers. "It really isn't so risky. The burglars, whoever they are, seem to prefer unoccupied buildings to houses—and nobody has been hurt—and there hasn't been anything since last week, so the constable thinks it was only a few isolated incidents, and not the beginning of some awful trend."

"Jeff Macneill hasn't the gumption God gave a goose," sniffed Miss Lottie. "Everyone knows he's only constable because his brother represents our district at Ottawa. He wouldn't know a crime spree if it fell out of the sky and hit him on the head. And anyway—it's all settled. We're going to have a boarder—we advertised in the Charlottetown papers—and we have found somebody, a young writer man by the name of Goddard. He is coming to work on a book—some _novel_—and he needs a quiet place. We wanted a man, so he could protect us if anything happened."

"I'd protect you if anything happened," said Marshall. "Cee and I Lee come stay with you, if you'd like, until Goddard gets here. When is he coming?"

"Next week," said Miss Lottie. "And I wouldn't have you come and stay with us for the world. Who knows what kind of havoc Ada would wreak with you under her own roof? A handsome man like _you_! Not on your life!"

Marshall hid a grin behind his hand, and a laugh under cover of a cough. Cecilia poked him in the ribs with a look of put-on fierceness.

"I'm sure we'll be glad to meet him," Cecilia said. "What is Mr. Goddard's first name? Perhaps I have read something by him."

"His name is Lee," pronounced Miss Lottie. "I believe it stands for something—not Liam, as you'd expect, but I forget what he said. My mind isn't what it used to be. Well—I should be getting back, for Ada has had hysterics twice in the last twenty-four hours. When I left her she looked like she was gearing up to have them again. And _you_ should be in bed—" fiercely, to Cecilia, "In _your condition_."

"Oh, how does _everybody_ know?" said poor Cecilia who thought she had been keeping her secret quite well.

"I have eyes in my head, don't I?" said Miss Lottie tartly, winding her scarf around her neck so that only a little button knows and a pair of stern blue eyes showed above the woolen folds. "You folks come and stand at the door and see me home, won't you? Just have a watch until I get up the hill. I'll light the lamp and set it in the window when I've got home safely. If it were up to Ada to look out for me, I'd be found lying dead in a ditch somewhere after the spring thaw."

"Miss Ada isn't nearly as bad as you make her out to be," said Marshall, with an impish look at Cecilia behind Miss Lottie's back. "And she is a very good-looking woman, despite her years."

"Don't even joke about a thing like that," said Miss Lottie. "And _don't_ let her hear you say it. There's no telling what she'd do."

Cecilia and Marshall stood at the door and watched her make her way up the hill. It was a very cold night—the kind of coldness that makes everything seem sharp and clear. The trees stood out like wrought iron against a sky that was all the shades of blue in the world, from an almost black at the horizon to a vibrant ultramarine higher up. Stars were beginning to peek boldly through the darkness, clear and cold-cut. The smell of snow was in the air, and woodsmoke. The river was pearl-gray and filmed with ice and silent, but they could hear the brook babbling happily under its own cover. The pointed fir tops stood out witchily against the sky, giving off a spicy, alluring scent. Lottie must have reached home safely, because a light bloomed out from the window of Hyacinth House, shining suddenly and startlingly clear through the trees. It was so lovely—so much like something out of a poem—or an old hymn—_yet in the dark streets shineth the everlasting light_. Marshall heard her wonder-sound and put his arms tight around her.

"Do you know how lucky we are, Cee?" he asked her, a little fiercely, as if he were afraid that it might be taken from him and wanted to protect against that unkind fate. "A dear home—good friends—health, wealth, and happiness—and most of all, _you_."

"And all we have to look forward to," murmured Cecilia. "Oh, Marshall, I love the winter—this winter—our first winter together. But it seems as though I couldn't wait for it to be summer again."

_____________________________________________

Lee Goddard took up his place at Hyacinth House the next week and Cecilia fully intended to run over and meet him, but as it often happens when you are a young country doctor, she did not have the chance. The flu was stalking Bright River and she had to be very careful of her own health just now. There was a skating accident on Bright Pond, and she treated bumps and broken bones and hypothermia. She stitched up a gash in Eben Walsh's hand, and sent a little girl to the hospital in Grafton with an advanced case of bronchitis.

And then Cecilia lost a patient. Old Neil Stimson was eighty-four—he had outlived his Biblical limit of 'three score and ten' and was quite unconcerned about dying. Cecilia seemed to feel it more than he did. Despite his age, his death was a great blow to her. In the war she had seen death—she had stalked it, staved it off—she had submitted to its power, from time to time. But that was wartime. It was to be expected.

She had never before sat at a bedside and held the hand of someone whose life and ability to go on living was entirely within her care. She had held Neil's hand as he had died, and had felt the waxiness and pallor of death creep into his touch. All the time she had been thinking that there was _something_ she must be able to do to save him—even up to that fatal moment. When he had died she had felt an incredulity descend upon her. She had not been able to save him. She had fought the battle—and lost. When she had been at deathbeds before, she had only been a nurse, and it made sense that she should not be able to so cleverly and successfully intervene. Now she was a doctor, and had an M.D. to prove it, and it made no sense to her that she should be so powerless in the face of death as she was before she had gone to medical school. She was very cold and calm as she had performed her final duties over that wasted body, and informed the family of their member's passing. But as soon as she could escape, she had wept—long and hard—as much for herself as for old Neil. The first few months of her practice she had felt invincible—now she knew that she was not.

Marshall was away and her little house felt stifling to her without him. She could not go back there—nor the office—she would torment herself, she knew, looking up possible solutions in her books, going over all the details to try and find error in her treatment. She bundled up against the cold and took her skates to the river, instead. It was a very silly thing for her to do—if she had fallen she might have seriously injured herself, or the little life that was growing within her. But just then Cecilia felt she would die if she could not free her trapped, bruised soul—if she could not give it wings—if she could not free it.

She spent an hour on the ice, skating and spinning until her chest burned. Finally, panting, she stopped. For a long while she had been lost to the world. There had been nothing but the bumpiness of the ice under her blades, the wind on her face. Now she saw that she was not alone, and that a young man was sitting on a fallen, frosty log at the river's edge, watching her with barely disguised approval. Cecilia wanted to run away—she did not want a stranger now—but the man was looking at her as though he expected her to speak. She skated over to him, unwillingly, and was not as gracious as she might have been with him.

"Who are you?" she asked, rudely—Cecilia who was _never_ rude; who had been schooled at the elbow of Una Meredith Blythe that rudeness was only a _little_ lower than the act of murder or dismemberment. But if the man cared or even noticed her tone, he did not show it. He grinned. He was an exceedingly strange-looking fellow. He had vibrant red hair—not the nice, almost-auburn color that ran in her own family. This man could be called 'Carrots' and it would be the truth. His hair was _orange_.

That by itself might have been enough, but he had freckles spattered across his face. Cecilia had never _seen_ a face so freckled before, even in her own, prone-to-freckles family. But for those things, which made him seem more-than-a-little ridiculous, and extremely jolly, when paired with the grin, like an oversized boy, he had a casual, feral kind of grace of bearing that marked him as manly and gave the impression that he had no idea of how odd he looked—or that he _did_ know, but had gotten over it. There was something that called to her, in his face. When he spoke, she knew why.

"I am Lee Goddard," he said. "And I know who you are. You are the naiad that lives in this river—when it's not frozen over. When it is wintry I suppose you are allowed out of it, like Persephone returning from the underworld. Even a cruel god could not make you withstand such frigid depths. Are you a kind naiad—tell me—or are you going to lure me to my doom, to suffer the same fate as Hylas?"

She now understood why he seemed so familiar—he was a kindred spirit.

"I am not a naiad at all," said Cecilia gravely, all her storm and discontent falling away at once. "I would be an Oceanid. This river is salt, you see—it flows into the sea."

"Ah!" said Lee Goddard. "You speak the language of fairy! If you are _not_ a naiad, pray tell me—who are you?"

"I am Cecilia Douglas—Dr. Cecilia Douglas."

"I am pleased to meet you," laughed Lee. "I am always happy to meet a friend of the trees."

"I know just what you mean by that," said Cecilia triumphantly. "You don't have to explain it. In my family we call it belonging to the race that knows Joseph."

"You don't have to explain _that_ to _me_," said Lee. "I understand it at once. Cecilia Douglas—I feel as though I should have known you at once. You are the very picture of the very nice picture my landladies painted of you."

"Miss Ada and Miss Lottie—how did you like them?"

"I loved them at once," Lee confessed. "I am going to write a short story about them and submit it to a magazine and it will make me famous. And they will not recognize themselves in it, not in a million years, even if I don't change their names. They are not the sort for self-actualization—but I love them still."

"When they asked you what you would call yourself—if you could be called anything—what did you say?"

"I said I'd be called what I am called," said Lee.

"Oh, _good_," breathed Cecilia happily. "Now we can all be friends. That is their own particular way of finding out who belongs to Joseph's tribe."

"Why don't you come back to the house with me," asked Lee, "And we can all take tea together—and we can all start being friends immediately? I hate to prevent it, when such a thing _is_ destined to happen. When I meet a friend, I like to jump right in to friendship with him."

Cecilia went, and a nice friendship indeed was born. By the time the tea had been drunk, Miss Ada and Miss Lottie had already married Lee off to all of the eligible single ladies in town, and he had already read them the story he had been working on down by the river that day, and more besides. When Cecilia came back to her house she felt she could already see Lee there, sitting before the fire, conversing with Gog and Magog, firmly established in the life of the little house. She saw him and Manon being fast friends, too. She knew that Lee would love Manon for her beauty, and she had a suspicion his worship, from a safe distance, of course, would cheer her up somewhat. She thought that perhaps God had understood her pain at losing Blythe's friendship, and had sent her, if not an exact replica, a passable substitute, until the time that the rift between them healed. Then she would not need a substitute, but she would have another friend—and one could not have too many friends.

The only problem was that Marshall did not 'take' to Lee as she would hoped. Oh, the men were perfectly cordial to one another, and seemed to enjoy each other's company, but they seemed to stand on opposite sides of a deep chasm and be conversing with one another over the drop between. Marshall did not speak fairy, and his own race-of-Josephiness, his own love for the trees, could not make up that deficiency between them.

"He reminds me too much of Blythe," pronounced Marshall darkly.

"Oh, _Marshall_," Cecilia cried. "You must get over your dislike of Blythe. Honestly—you're a grownup now—and there is nothing to fear with Blythe. We _didn't_ love each other—we only thought we did—there is no lingering passion between us. We're only embarrassed and feel a little foolish over our mistake. I don't _belong_ to him—I never did."

"You couldn't—you belonged to me," said Marshall, gloatingly. He put his arms about her and for the first time, was able to pity poor Blythe. Foolish, indeed—to let this goddess get away!


	7. Christmas at Bright River

Cecilia could not get away for Christmas—she had a young mother up on Bright Hill expecting a baby any day, and two wee toddlers with croupy symptoms that might have to be looked after—so a faction of Glen and Four Winds people split off from the larger group and journeyed to the house where the brook and river met to celebrate the season there. It was the first time Cecilia and Marshall had had _real_ houseguests. Manon had come to stay overnight many times, and Cecilia often entertained the ladies of Hyacinth House and Lee—Shirley and Una had come up a few times to visit for the day. But Cecilia had never had so many overnight guests going to stay for so long. She delighted in setting her little abode to rights, polishing the coppers pans that hung on hooks in the kitchen until they threw back the light, plumping cushions and setting vases of holly and ivy around for a festive air. She tied crimson velvet bows around Gog and Magog's necks. When the carload of travelers turned up the lane, she ran out to meet them in the deepening twilight.

"Hello—hello!" she cried, to her mother, her dad, little Romy and—_Grandmother_! Her dad had hinted at a surprise for her, and told her to make ready for other guests, but Cecilia had never suspected that Grandmother might be coming along, too. She had never in her many years spent Christmas anywhere but Avonlea or in the Glen. Cecilia felt tears spring into her eyes as she threw her arms around her grandmother's neck and squeezed her tight.

"I had to come, dearest," Grandmother explained. "I wanted to see _your_ little house of dreams for myself."

Behind Grandmother lurked a tall, slim girl with her face in shadow. "Cousin Nancy," said Cecilia, a little uncertainly. Nancy, Jem and Faith's youngest girl, had never been her especial chum. She had belonged to the younger half of the generation. It had been Susan who had been her special friend—after Susan had died, it had hurt Cecilia to see the two Annes, one Blythe and one Ford, growing up and having gay good times, without her flame-haired sister. She had known Nancy was a junior at Redmond, but had not really realized that Nancy was decidedly not a baby anymore until she saw her, now. She was so tall—taller than Cecilia—and so fashionably dressed, and her face, so like her mothers, rosy and brown, was as girlishly sweet as ever. The expression she wore there, however, marked her as a woman—it was a face that had some mark of sorrow in it. Cecilia discerned at once that something had happened and that Nancy had joined Grandmother on her journey for some reason that was not being, at the moment, divulged.

"I am so glad to have you—_all_," she said firmly and sincerely. "Come into the house and have supper—there's a lovely fire going—and you must be hungry and cold."

They had a gay dinner, and then they trimmed the tree. Cecilia had a lot of fairy lights and colored balls to hang on the branches, and everyone pitched in, and finally got things set to their satisfaction. Marshall lifted Romy to set the star on top of it all. Then they all gathered around the out-of-tune piano that Mother seemed to caress into good humor with her very touch, and sang carols, their voices blending together happily—her own husky alto, Grandmother's soprano, Dad's bass and Marshall's baritone. Only Nancy did not sing, but sat on the sofa, pulling her knees up to her chest. Cecilia did not remember the girl as being sulky, and wondered at her rudeness. But—perhaps—there was something more to it than that.

They ended their singing with the song Cecilia liked best: _It Came upon a Midnight Clear_. That glorious song of old! Her heart and soul were very full when the last note died away. The clock on the mantelpiece took it up—chimed twelve times—it was midnight, and officially the start of Christmas.

"It's so late!" she cried, the spell broken.

"We must all be in bed," Shirley laughed, "Or Santa Claus will never come."

Cecilia pointed everyone in the direction of their night's lodgings—Mother and Dad and Romy in Cecilia and Marshall's room, Grandmother on the little daybed in what was to be the nursery, when they got around to clearing it out. Nancy would have the fold-out sofa in the office, and Cecilia and Marshall made up a pallet on the floor in the living room, a nest of blankets, comfortable by the fire. Marshall, who had been at work late that day, fell right asleep, but Cecilia sat up by the fire, listening to the sounds of the house settling down for the night. She grinned at her father's soft snores echoing down the stairs. A little wind pulled at the windows, trying to get in. The embers in the fireplace glowed red and sighed into ash.

From directly above her, she thought she heard the sound of crying. Who had she put there—it was the study—it was Nancy's room. Why should her pretty girl-cousin be crying? Maybe it was the wind? But no—Cecilia had heard the sound too many times, from too many different people, to mistake it. She lay in an agony of sympathy. Should she got to Nancy, and comfort her? Or perhaps the girl was only homesick, and that would make her feel like a baby, to have anybody know.

"I'll wait—and do what my conscience tells me to do," said Cecilia, but before her conscience could tell her anything, she was asleep.

_____________________________________

Blythe and Manon had gone back to Lowbridge to have the holiday with his family—poor Manon had said darkly that she would _rather_ stay here, where nobody would insult her, even out of misguided kindness. But the little house was full to bursting without them. Besides her Glen St. Mary guests, Cecilia had invited Misses Lottie and Ada, and Friend Lee, to Christmas dinner. She put two extra leaves in the table, to accommodate them all, and brought out such a groaning array of delicacies that they were awed.

"I always knew you could cook, Cee," said Shirley to his daughter, "But you've put even your mother to shame today."

Una poked him with a very un-Una-like look on her face, but she was very proud of her girl, and that showed more plainly still.

Everyone had a marvelous time. The ladies of Hyacinth House took an immediate shine to Una Blythe, one sitting on either side of her, throughout the meal, and finishing each other's sentences over her head. Shirley and Marshall, who had a longstanding friendship, based on certain practical, laconic streaks in their natures, and a shared love of Cecilia, talked to each other of certain little improvements Marshall hoped to make on the house in the New Year. Grandmother seemed quite taken with Lee Goddard, and they spoke fairy to each other while they ate. When Cecilia went into the kitchen to retrieve her mince pies from the oven, Grandmother followed her.

"Cecilia," she said, "_Wherever_ did you find him?

"I didn't find him," Cecilia said, quite honestly. "_He_ found _us_."

"He reminds me of someone," Anne pronounced, her eyes far away, as she sifted through her memory to try and place him.

"I thought the same thing," said Cecilia, "But it is only one of Joseph's race calling out to another."

The best moment of the day, for Cecilia, was not the gift-giving, or even receiving, though she had gotten some pretty things: Mother and Father bought her some beautiful things for the house, and Grandmother gave her some old books from her grandfather's study, and Marshall a sapphire pendant on a slim chain that he threaded around her throat. It was when she and Marshall made their announcement, about their new arrival. The table was stunned into silence—it was so _soon_—but then the wave of joy broke over them. Una Blythe wept—even Shirley looked teary—and Grandmother's eyes were shining with happiness and hopes. The ladies of Hyacinth House exchanged satisfied glances—they would have their baby to worship and adore, as the Three Kings had had theirs in Bethlehem to pay fealty to. Only cousin Nancy nodded her head—as if babies, and this baby, were especially commonplace. As the other guests raised their glasses in a toast, she slipped away to the piano, and began to pick out a melody of a popular song Cecilia recognized from the radio.

"Sulky, ill-mannered puss!" Cecilia thought, forgetting about the sobs she had heard from above the night before.

After a moment, Lee slipped away to join her. He was like that, Cecilia was beginning to realize—he had a gift for smoothing over awkward situations. And he was so merry himself that he could not bear to see anyone not having a good time. He was also an accomplished pianist, and knew all the latest songs. He played the opening, rollicking bars of a tune, and sang out, in his deep voice, _The Old Piano Roll Blues_.

_I want to hear it again, I want to hear it again: _

_The old piano roll blues!_

_We're sitting at the upright, my sweetie and me_

_Pushing on the pedals, making sweet harmony. _

_When we hear rinkety dink, when we hear plinkety plink_

_We cuddle closer it seems—_

"Oh, _don't_!" Nancy cried, suddenly. She sprang up from the bench, shaking. Her face was screwed up into an expression of fear, horror, and disgust. She ran her hands over her arms, as though she wanted to rid herself of the feeling of Lee's body leaning comfortably and jokingly into her, mirroring the lyrics of the song.

"Don't touch me," she screamed, her hands out in front of her as though to ward off a blow, her gray eyes blind and wild and unseeing. "_Don't touch me like that_!"

A shocked silence fell over the table, though Cecilia thought she saw Mother and Grandmother sharing a glance in which they spoke volumes to each other without saying a word. Grandmother rose from the table, and went over to her namesake, laid a tentative hand on her shoulder. Nancy, still lost in some violent agony, at first tried to throw her off—then, realizing who it was, she slumped against her Grandmother and buried her face in her shoulder. She began to sob.

Anne Blythe pulled Nancy's coat and her own from the peg by the door. "Come on, dearest," she said. "Let's go and walk by the river."

"I'll come with you," Shirley said, starting from his chair.

"No," said his mother, firmly. "Just Nancy and I will go."

The rest of the group heard her sobs die away the further they got down the lane, and Anne's murmuring voice grew fainter and fainter. Lee still stood where he had sprung up when Nancy had shouted at him.

"My God, I'm sorry," he said, so stricken that his freckles stood out darkly against his pale face. "I _didn't_ touch her—I was only singing—I wouldn't want you to think…"

"You did not do anything wrong," said Una Blythe, clearly and simply. "Nancy is only very upset about something else. She is not herself, lately. Perhaps—it was wrong—to bring her here. I must go call Faith. Excuse me."

Cecilia followed her mother into the kitchen. "Mother," she whispered, "What is wrong with Nancy?"

Una looked troubled—and like she would have _liked_ to say—but then she sighed and shook her head.

"It is not my place to tell her secret," she said. "But Cecilia—be kind to the girl. She needs a friend, right now, more than ever anyone has needed a friend before. Will you reach out to her, darling? Will you?"

"I will, Mother," Cecilia promised, and when the family took their leave of the little house, Cecilia reached out and pressed Nancy's cold hand.

"Dear," she whispered, "Won't you come up and see me—often? I do want to get to know you better and I am lonely here when Marshall is away. You would do me good."

"It is far more likely," said Nancy, with a little bit of her old spice that Cecilia remembered, "That they think _you_ will do _me_ good, and have told you to ask me to come see you. But I shall have a lot of free time and I shall need some way to fill it, so I just might come. I am not going back to Redmond in the spring—or ever again."

"Not—going—back? Nancy—why?"

But instead of answered, Nancy only allowed Grandmother to lead her away to the car.

Marshall joined her at the door to wave them off. "Our first Christmas was not entirely a failure, Cee."

"No," Cecilia sighed, thinking of the way Nancy had jumped up, when Lee had pressed his shoulder to hers in that slight, friendly way. "But it was not _entirely_ a success, either."


	8. Two Sides to Every Story

Cecilia had worried, when she had moved away from the Glen, that she would find herself cut off from her family. It had been very depressing to her, to know that she would miss things—little milestones—sweet little happenings—all the gossip. But she needn't have worried—the Blythes and Merediths and Fords were too fond of letters, and of each other, to let that happen. Cecilia was well-apprised of anything and everything that happened, and usually from two or three points of view. She sat down one snowy Saturday afternoon with a sheaf of letters in her lap.

"Read them to me," commanded Marshall, grinning. "I'm starving for a good batch of news."

"By news you mean gossip," Cecilia said, leaning over to tickle his face with the tips of her hair. "My, my, Marshall Douglas—you _are_ becoming a busybody in your old age."

But still, she unfolded the first of her letters, and read.

_Dear Cecilia, _Cathy Ford had written, _I want to write to you and tell you of the most deplorable thing I did last week. It's just been wild at the House of Dreams, lately—first the twins were sick with a cold, and then Gilly got it, and then me. I was so busy taking care of everybody, and then feeling so poorly myself, that I didn't do a stitch of housework for ever so long. Gilly is so good about it when it's home, but then his ship left port and he had to go. Without him to help me, all the dishes piled up—the wash overflowed the hampers—and the place was a shambles, generally. When I was finally feeling better, I got out of bed and tied my hair up in a kerchief and set to. About ten minutes into my Big Clean, the doorbell rang, and who should I find at the door but Mother Rilla and Father Ken! I had "clean" forgotten they were due to visit, but there they were! They were meant to stay a week and I hadn't made up the spare room at all, and hadn't even a clean pair of sheets for the bed. _

_I served them tea in the sitting room—it was the least dirty room in the house. I would _NOT_ let Mother Rilla go into the kitchen, even when she asked me how my geranium that she had given me was coming along. I positively barred the door and snarled at her. She just looked at me as though I was rather odd and then, blessedly, the telephone rang. It was your grandmother, asking them to run up to Ingleside and have lunch with her. Sometimes, Cecilia, I think that your grandmother is clairvoyant. I loved her more in that moment than I ever had before. _

_As soon as they were gone, I flew around, cleaning and feeding the twins. I gave them both quick baths, and then I remembered the pie I had left in the oven. It was starting to smell decidedly well done, so downstairs I flew. I left the babies on their mats—they aren't really that mobile, yet, and can't get too far, so it was quite safe. When I came up to diaper and dress them I heard the car in the lane so I just threw their clothes upon them, quick as a jiff. Then I brought them downstairs, feeling quite pleased with myself. I had put them in the little monogrammed dresses _you_ gave me for their christening. I handed a baby apiece to Mother Rilla and Father Ken, feeling very pleased with myself_. _Mother Rilla looked at little Vivvy and said, "She's gotten so much bigger, hasn't she?" _

_I took a quick look myself, and noticed that Vivian _was _looking bigger—which is surprising, since she has always been a smidge smaller than Lillian. It is the only way I can tell them apart, they are so alike with their identical faces and matching gold curls. But there was Viv, looking bigger, and I noticed that Lill was looking _smaller _than she should. But I chalked it up to new feeding habits—I have just started them on solid food—and thought nothing of it. _

_But it was so odd, all the week—Vivvy cried and cried, and usually it is Lill who does the shouting. But Lilly just sat and cooed. It was like an episode of The Twilight Zone, like they'd switched personalities. For instance: Vivvy was creeping around on all fours, when she has never done it before. Lill was the creeper, but she didn't seem to remember how to do it at all. She wouldn't even push herself up. How could I have one baby that went _backwards_ and one that shot _forward?_ I began to have a cold, creepy feeling—as though something was wrong, but thought it must be nerves. But _then_, when Gilly came home—the first thing he said was, "What have you done to the babies, Cath?" I'd dressed them in their little initial smocks again, because I always like to have them nice for his homecoming. He said, "You've mixed Lilly for Viv and Viv for Lilly!" And I'd had them mixed up for a WEEK, without that thought ever occurring to me that that was what had happened!_

_Oh, Cecilia! I must not be a very _good_ mother if I can't tell my babies apart. I am sure I will laugh over it one day—but now I just feel awful. Suppose babies really do understand more than we give them credit for? They'll think I don't _LOVE them or _KNOW them. And Mother Rilla certainly has a poor opinion of me, now. I am ashamed to say I went right upstairs and cried and cried—but then Gilly brought the babies up and we all laid in the bed together—and the babies clapped their hands and laughed—they'd both smiled but never laughed before, and I felt better. _

_I want to tell you something _scandalous_ Romy did—I want you to hear it from me before anybody else. It seems she was sledding with little Addie Clow on the hill overlooking the Methodist church—and they got tired of that and decided to have a snowball fight—and somehow, one of the snowballs went right through the new stained-glass picture window the congregation had installed at Christmas. If it had been Addie Clow it would have been fine, because she is a Methodist. But it appears it was Romy, and nobody has forgotten the family's connection with Miss Cornelia Elliott. There are some people think Romy did it on _purpose_. It's been torture for your poor ma, having everybody talking about it. I really _feel_ for her, but I never liked that window, and I can't say that I'm not glad I don't have to look at it anymore. _

_Dear Cecilia_, ran Nellie Blythe's letter, which Cecilia opened next. Even the handwriting was fainter, and more refined, than Cathy's bold scrawl. _I wanted to be sure to write you before Cathy does about what has happened, because I know she is sure to twist the truth all around and I want you to have the story straight from me. _

_Yes—Romy threw a snowball through the Methodist church window—but it's such a horrible window, Jesus and the apostles in their fishing boat, which is nice enough—only St. Peter's face was put together wrong, the panes sodered so that the lead melted, and the long and short of it is that it looks like St. Peter has a very prominent Hitler moustache, right under his nose! Anyway, Romy _says_ it was an accident, and your dad has offered to pay for it. And I tell everybody I meet that it is far more likely Romy was throwing the snowball at something else. You know—and everybody who knows Romy knows—that if she HAD meant to hit the window she would have missed. And either way, I'm glad she did it. I got tired of looking up at that window and seeing Jesus saying 'upon this rock I will build my church'—to the Fuhrer!_

_We had a nice Christmas here at Ingleside, though we missed you. Oh, Cecilia—I know _all_ about your news, and I am so excited. Some people say it's awful soon for you, and there have been one or two whispers that perhaps it's _TOO_ soon, but mostly from people like terrible Mrs. Irene Drew. All of us—who know you—are overjoyed, purely and simply. The only dark spot on the whole holiday was that we weren't there to share your happiness in person. _

_Walt's law practice is thriving—though I am still not sure if Jem has ever fully forgiven him for going into the law instead of medicine. There are some people, I think, who think he must not be doing very well, since we still live at Ingleside, and don't have a house of our own. To them, I say—Ingleside_ IS_ our home. It does me so much good to see your grandmother holding little Jamie and to think that there are four generations of Blythes under one roof. I wouldn't live anywhere else for the world. _

_Walt had a funny case, recently. I think I'll tell you all about it. You remember old Whiskers-on-the-Moon—Mr. Pryor? He was one hundred years old in the fall, and what do you think he has done? _He has gone and married for the second time, at that advanced age! _His bride is a mere lassie of sixty, and despite the fact that she seems to love him, she is a good sort. You know Mr. Pryor cut his daughter, Mrs. Joe Milgrave, out of his will long ago, after she married against his wishes. Well, the new Mrs. Pryor has convinced old Whiskers to write Miranda back in, and make her the sole beneficiary of his estate. Walt handled the redrafting of the will, and he said that he must make sure, under the law, that Mr. Pryor was in his right mind when he made the change. To which your grandmother said, "Well, that WILL be hard to prove, since it is debatable whether he was ever in his 'right mind' to begin with!" And Aunt Rilla who was there said, "Oh, Mother—you're channeling Susan Baker." _

_Have you seen Blythe's latest book? I'm sure you have. We got our advance copy, right off the presses, just yesterday. Your grandmother simply poured over it. Then she kissed the front cover, and put it on the shelf next to your uncle Walter's anthology that was published after the war. "To think that I am the mother and grandmother of a poet!" she said, "It is better, even, than being the teacher of one." I confess I flipped through it but could make neither heads nor tails of it. I always thought poems were supposed to _rhyme_. But then, I am not college-educated like you. Likely you had better luck when you read it._

"But I haven't read it," Cecilia sighed. "Blythe hasn't sent me a copy yet. He seems to have forgotten me. Oh, Marshall—you're going to sneer—but I miss Blythe, miss him to my heart's core. He was the friend of my childhood and he helped me over that rough patch with Mother in the hospital and me so far away from home. And now I feel as though we were never friends at all."

"There is no sneer on my face," Marshall said. He had never hated Blythe or said a cutting thing about him since that time before Christmas when Cecilia had told him not to. "Blythe will come around in his own good hour. And in the meantime—what will you read me next?"

It was a letter from Romy herself, seemingly bent on setting the record straight.

_Dear Cecilia, no dout you have heard by now that I am a criminal and un justly accused of breaking the Methodist window. I did not do it, but I will bear my cross because I want to protect the person who did do it, which is Daddy. Uncle Jem and Daddy were the ones to take me and Addie sledding and while we were going down the hill, Uncle Jem said to Daddy, Shirly, I bet you can not hit the steeple on the top of the Methodist church with this snowball. And Daddy said he could, easy. And Uncle Jem said, I dare you. Do it then. _

_So Daddy threw the snow ball up but he missed the steeple entirly and hit old Nazi Peter square in the face and shattered the window. Addie came running, she hadn't seen, but I SAW IT ALL. Oh, Shirly! Uncle Jem cried, It's the bad place for you after this!_

_Daddy and us went and waked up Rev. Heatherington, who is the Methodist minister, and he said there had been an accident. That is the passive voice, see? It leaves it blank as to who the subject is. We are learning it in school. Well, Rev. Heatherington and other people just asumed it was me and I sha'nt be the one to get Daddy in trouble so I have not set them right. And Daddy is going to pay to have it replaced so it really doesn't matter who did it in the end. Besides I have got awful popular with the boys because of my throwing arm so I really do not mind. _

_Daddy came in while I was writing this and said For the love of Goodness, Romy-girl, tell your sister to burn that letter! So burn it, Cecilia, but please be careful with the matches and do not stand too close to the curtains when you do it. I did that last week ligting a candle and the whole side of the drapes in the parlour went up at once. _

Such laughter as filled the little house at that! Cecilia almost hated to give it up, but dropped the letter in the fire as she was bidden.

"Anything else in your mail-bag?" Marshall asked.

"Only a note from Nancy," Cecilia smiled. "She wants to know if I really meant it about her coming to visit."

"And did you?"

"I did, indeed. I shall write a note and tell her to come straight away and stay as long as she likes."

After Cecilia had written out and signed her invitation, she settled on the couch with a magazine in which one of Lee's stories had appeared. She snuggled down with Marshall before the fire and read the tale out loud to him. It was a sweet thing, full of mystery and unrequited love. Cecilia could not help noticing that the heroine was a girl with ripely, ruddily brown hair, and gray eyes, and rosy cheeks. She could not place why that character seemed so familiar to her—perhaps it was just that she reeked of the goblin magic that lurked between the lines of all of Lee's stories. And anyway, Cecilia did not wonder long. The story worked its charm upon her. After she had laid the magazine down her head was still spinning with dreams, and she sat, staring into the fire, thoughts like little sunset clouds flitting through her mind. Marshall saw that he had lost her to the land of reverie, covered her with a blanket, and went off, whistling. He knew that she would come back to earth in her own good time, and he would come to welcome her back when she did.


	9. Interlude

Cecilia had a busy winter. By February, people had gotten so used to the little lady-doctor, with her practical voice and friendly smile and cap of black curls—nay, not _used_ to her—they had started to love her, and trust in her, so that her services were in high demand. A doctor less sure of himself as Niles Harper, who had treated all the bumps and scrapes and coughs of Bright River for over forty years, would possibly have resented this newcomer's usurpation, but Dr. Harper was a genial fellow, and he did not mind a bit more free time. His oldest daughter had just had a baby, and he was glad to turn more and more of the practice over to young Blythe's capable hands.

"And I'll make it up when you're having your little rest at the end of the summer," Harper said. It was how he referred to Cecilia's pregnancy—still being afflicted with a little of the gentlemanly bearing of his bygone generation.

"Men—of a certain age—simply cannot talk of those things," wrote Cecilia to Joy. "I don't hold it against Harper—I actually think it's a little sweet, as though he is just a sensitive, embarrassed boy. But I can _not_ resign myself to being the odd person out at doctorly functions. Last week, Harper invited me and Dr. Frost from Avonlea to supper to discuss how we shall handle the polio threat this summer. They spent most of their time ignoring me—not out of spite or rudeness—it is just that a woman is still an anomaly in our chosen profession. _I _talked to Mrs. Harper about the recipe she had used for her rhubarb pie—and fumed under my curls. And _then_, after the meal was ended, the men retired to the study to smoke and talk some more, without inviting me along. Again, it didn't strike me as mean—it just seemed as though they had forgotten me. I did not know whether to follow—would they think me impertinent, and unladylike?—and so I meekly followed Mrs. Harper into her kitchen and helped her wash the supper dishes. And raged some more. It seems to me, Joy, that I occupy a weird position in life. Not _quite_ a woman—you'll never catch 'Grandma' Macneil offering me quilt patterns or recipes—but not _quite_ a man, either. I don't know which tribe will have me, and so I walk like Kipling's cat—'by my wild lone.' I feel a little like a pioneer—and I think how _lonely_ it must have been for those folks who struck out into the void.

"I planned to freeze both men when they came back to the table—but I didn't get very far. Dr. Frost paid me so many compliments—he'd read my article in the _Redmond Medical Journal_—and Dr. Harper echoed them so sincerely and added a few more that I glowed with enough pride to break my chill exterior. But next time they go to smoke, I vow that I am going to march right in along with them and take up one of the cigars, and _smoke it myself_. That will show them."

In early March there was another wonder moment—Blythe finally delivered a copy of his book, and Cecilia teared up when she read the dedication page. This, she felt, was worth the wait—_To Cecilia: muse, mentor, critic and friend_. She read it in one gulp and when Blythe came to ask her what she thought of it they had one of their old-time heart-to-hearts in a ramble by the thawing river. She flew back to her house on feet that had wings, looking so happy that Marshall could not find it in himself to be jealous of the way they had bent their heads together, in deep conversation, leaving the rest of the world behind.

Best of all, that spring, was something Manon told Cecilia. They had seen less of each other over the winter—partly because the roads had been so bad, and partly, Cecilia feared, because her happiness had lodged solidly between herself and Manon. But she needn't have worried. Just at the time the daffodils were beginning to unfurl their golden, lacy crowns, Manon ran up to the little house and sat with Cecilia in the garden, and her face was astar with delight.

"Cecilia," she said, in a low voice, "Do you remember, that time before Christmas, when I told you of that thing I wanted so badly—that thing I thought that I would never get? Well—I am going to have it, after all. I am going to have a baby, darling."

"Oh, _Manon_!" Cecilia cried, a great wash of joy overtaking her. "I'm _so happy_. I knew it would come true for you, dearest. Didn't I tell you God was good? How are you feeling?"

"I am feeling better than I've ever felt in my life," Manon said. "I've no sickness at all and my heart just sings for joy."

"And—when will it be? The fall?"

"It will be in December," Manon said, "In the beginning of the month. Those gloomy gray days—but I'll have a little light to shine through the darkness for me. Oh, my life is everything I want it to be, now. Things are just _perfect_."

A little cloud stole over Cecilia's mind—she hated to hear anyone say that things were _perfect_. It was like tempting fate. She believed in the goodness of God, wholeheartedly—but there was a wild pagan streak in her that believed it was possible to be too happy as to offend the force of evil—to make it stalk you—and try to conquer you. She would not tell Manon to rap wood. It would put a damper on the moment. But as they walked through the garden, she put her hand out and touched the smooth bark of a slender birch. _She_ would rap wood—just in case.

________________________________

Cousin Nancy did come for her visit, and was so shy and sulky at first that Cecilia wondered why she had come at all. She arranged a host of gay evenings for her friend—quietly fun, just the kind that would be enough to entertain but not frighten her. Lee came with his books and read to them in the evenings. He brought a different book each time, and they were always surprised and charmed by his selection: they read of dark, mysterious _Rebecca_ de Winter one night, and fiery, impassioned Scarlett O'Hara the next. He read them to them from _Pickwick_ and _Vanity Fair_ and of poor, doomed _Tess of the d'Urbervilles_, and even one night, from a children's book just recently published in the States, of 'young Gerald McGrew' who'd 'make a few changes' if 'he ran the zoo.' It had them in peals of laughter. Even Nancy shared a bright silvery note as the words of Dr. Seuss picked her up and tossed her about in their rhythm. Once Lee had simply brought the Oxford dictionary and they flipped through it, deciding which words they liked most and best. Cecilia decided on 'sandwich' as her favorite, and 'noisome' as the one she liked least. Lee chose 'heavenward' and 'mildew,' respectively. Marshall, laconic as usual, said he rather favored 'success' but hated 'failure.'

"What is your best, and worst?" Lee asked Nancy.

Nancy seemed to think, tilting her head so that a fall of red-brown hair tumbled over her face. "I've always liked 'safe.' Not only for its connotation. It is such a grounding word—you feel as though you could stand on it, when you say it."

"And for your least favorite?"

Nancy flared suddenly into a passion that was as sudden as a bolt from the blue.

"Oh," she said, "It wouldn't be a word you could find in the book—it would be a _name_."

Sometimes, when they had finished their reading for the evening, they gathered around the piano, and sang. Or at least—Cecilia and Marshall and Lee did. Nancy usually hung back. But once, when Lee picked out a familiar melody on the piano, she surprised everybody by standing up and singing, in a bright, clear voice, the words that went along with it.

Her voice was fine—Cecilia felt she knew, now, why Nancy had always been so sought after in all the Redmond musical productions.

_I'm always chasing rainbows,  
Watching clouds drifting by,  
My dreams are just like all my schemes,  
Ending in the sky._

There was something heartbreaking about her little face, pointed of chin and sad of eye, as she sang the dispirited words that went along with the pretty melody.

_Some fellows look and find the sunshine,  
I always look and find the rain.  
Some fellows make a winning sometime,  
I never even make a gain. _

_I'm always chasing rainbows,  
I'm watching for a little bluebird—in vain._

Lee let her finish the song, but when she had, with a few strokes of the keys, he twisted the tune around into another song, and Cecilia, glad for his subtle finesse, took up the happier tune.

_Every time it rains it rains_

_Pennies from heaven!_

_Don't you know each cloud contains_

_Pennies from heaven!_

Even Marshall took it up, eager to dispel the haunting note that Nancy's singing had injected into the friendly atmosphere. But Nancy herself refused to be tempted, and hied herself to the sofa, where she sat staring out of the window at a mist that crept up from the rock shore.

"Something has hurt her very badly," Lee said, as Cecilia walked with him to the end of the lane. "I can't fathom what it might be, but it hurts me to see her like that. She is such a pretty thing—like a little yellow canary—she should always be singing, but not those sad, sad songs."

The next day, there was a sheaf of roses left on the doorstep of the little house, and Cecilia knew that they were not meant for her. But when she passed them to Nancy, the girl's face grew ashen with alarm.

"I—I don't want them," she said, in a little choked voice. "They have thorns—they'll prick me, so."

"Aren't you curious who sent them?" asked Cecilia, who had always welcomed romance at Nancy's age.

Nancy lifted a face that was as white as a sheet.

"No," she said. "I don't want to know. I'm too—afraid—that it will be somebody who—who I don't want to be sending me anything."

She fled into the house, and up the stairs, leaving Cecilia with her filmy burden.


	10. Spring Things

Despite the seeming failure of her last visit, Nancy came again to the house where the brook and river met—and after that she came again—until she had started coming every weekend. Slowly, just like the ice on the river, she began to thaw. As the April rains thrummed against the windows, she came out of her shell, bit by bit. Now she would take a turn reading Frost's poems—now she helped Cecilia bake a cake for Marshall's birthday, icing it beautifully and scattering bits of shredded cocoanut on top—now she sang with Lee, even sitting down on the piano bench with him, and the tune and words were not at all maudlin:

_Forget your troubles, come on, get happy!_

_Chase all your cares away. _

She was a very different girl from the Nancy who had come to them at Christmas, and the little house and its inhabitants were always glad to see her. She was bright, and helpful, and underneath whatever sadness she wore like a cloak over her bowed shoulders, she was even fun. She hardly ever left the house—Cecilia thought that she must be afraid of something—but she sat in the garden for hours, or folded herself into some nook so that it was almost a surprise to stumble upon her. There were times when she seemed like any other pretty, happy girl of twenty.

But there were other times when the veil dropped down before her eyes, separating her from the world again. There were times when Cecilia heard the unmistakable sound of sobs coming from the little bedroom, and the first time she _did_ get up and go to her cousin.

"Oh, go away," Nancy said, raising her tearstained face to meet Cecilia's eyes. "You want to _help_ me—how can you? What can you know of what I feel? You—with your husband and your baby and your friends and your happy home. You will never understand—never."

Cecilia thought that Nancy was right: she _couldn't_ understand. And Nancy wouldn't help her, by telling her what was wrong.

________________________________

One mild afternoon—the first really warm afternoon of the year—Cecilia sneezed. And then again. At lunchtime her head ached, and her throat was raspy when she called Marshall to the supper table that Nancy had graciously set for her. By nightfall, it was clear that Cecilia Douglas had a cold—a particularly nasty one—and the worst time of a year for it, when the world was scent and gorgeousness again. Oh, a cold in May is like a slap in the face!

Dr. Harper, thinking of the baby that he never mentioned so directly, sent her to bed with strict orders not to get up until she was feeling better than she had been feeling before. He had never known how much he really loved his little partner until he saw her looking white and weak. He took to dropping by the house every day, with a bag of licorice tea, which Nancy brewed up and brought in steaming cupfuls for Cecilia to drink. She hated the horrid stuff—but everybody was being so nice to her—everyone wanted her to get better, and she must not disappoint them.

But oh—she longed to be out of doors! From her window she could see the faint filmy leaves on the trees—the goldenrod springing up along the lane—she could smell the blossoms on the apple seedling she had planted by the door. Lee was kind—he brought her the first little buds of roses on her bush—but it was Marshall who brought her the Mayflowers. He was not a poetic fellow but something in his soul had always loved the story of how Uncle Jem brought them to his mother, and then his wife, every year. He splayed his large, strong, finely-molded hand on her belly.

"When he gets old enough, I'll have him do it, for me."

Nancy was a comfort to her, running up and down the stairs to check on her, and generally keeping the house going smoothly. And the ladies of Hyacinth House came over nearly every day for the express purpose of 'keeping Cecilia company.'

One or the other of them, Miss Lottie or Miss Ada, always began the conversation by saying, "We want to hear all about what's going on with _you_," and then proceeded to talk so incessantly that even if Cecilia had been dying she would not have been able to say. But she did not really mind. The ladies had a horror of gossiping, and if she had asked them outright, they would have refused to gossip with her. But talking things over amongst themselves didn't count, and Cecilia had a deep love of 'news.' So she let them talk, and sometimes had to cough into her handkerchief lest she laugh out loud and break the spell.

"Wesley Morris has gotten a divorce," pronounced Miss Ada one afternoon. "It is the first we've ever had in Bright River—even a Yankee divorce. Isn't it, Charlotte? And to tell the truth, I never thought it would be Wesley who got one. Sarah has been a good wife to him, even if she is a Sloane—" apparently, Sloanishness crossed the county lines, and was not limited to Avonlea or its inhabitants. "Half of me thinks that Wes only got it to see if he _could_. And now he has, he'll be sorry about it. The Morrises have always been like that. Why, when Wesley's father was courting his mother, he was wild about her—until he proposed and she accepted. _Then_ he couldn't fathom what he saw in her in the first place."

"If I had ears like George Morris I'd wonder, too, at anybody who'd want me," Miss Lottie said. "Ears like mud-flaps—_just_ like mud-flaps, Adeline! I read an article in a Yankee magazine about a movie star who had an operation to make her nose smaller. Far be it for any of us to meddle with the looks God gave us—but if I were a Morris, I'd think on it—I'd think on it. Those _ears_! And they all have so many children. Thank _heaven_ people move away from the place they're born, or with all the intermarrying we'd be a race of flap-eared people."

"I don't know about the Morris ears—but the Macneill nose would be a cross to bear," said Miss Ada, whose own nose was perhaps the most beautiful thing about her—long and straight and aristocratic. "I went over to Agnes Macneill's to drop off some of my damson preserves—and I saw her baby—not two days old and he has the Macneillest nose that I've ever seen. And you know baby's noses always get worse—not better. How that little tot will look in twenty years will be just plain abominable, Charlotte."

"Agnes Macneill was a Macneill who married a Macneill," sniffed Miss Lottie. "They are all so clannish, them folks. I said to her, ten years ago, before her wedding, 'Aggie, are you _very_ sure you know what you're doing?' 'No, Aunt Charlotte,' she told me. 'But then, I'm never very sure.' Her ma was that way. Never knew her own mind from one minute to the next. You remember, once, when she had the minister to tea, and she was going about getting the pot brewed up, and accidentally emptied her dripping can into the pot instead of the water from the kettle. And didn't even notice until she'd drunk half of it down. You know, Adeline, they say that Lee Goddard has been seen going around with Trina Macneill."

"There is no truth to that report," said Miss Ada, with dignity. "He is far too good-looking a man to risk introducing that nose into his gene pool. He has _some_ sense, Charlotte."

"Well, if you're so smart—I met Lee himself coming out of the florist the other day with a bunch of yellow roses. And then they say that Trina wore a yellow rose in her hair at the dance at the pavilion."

"Likely she got it from that big bush that grows in yard," dismissed Miss Ada. "Her mother planted it years ago. She took a cutting from a rosebush that grew in the graveyard. _I _find that scandalous. Well, Angus Macneill's going around with a bee in his bonnet because his daughter married Ed Moyer, who owns that old house in the middle of town—the pretty red-brick one—and they say they're going to tear it down and build a Douglas supermarket in its place."

"Oh, that is not true," said Cecilia, spurred to speaking. "Douglas Co. never tears homes or other businesses to build. Marshall is adamant about that. He doesn't want _our_ stores to be big, horrible, impersonal places like they are in the states. He takes over abandoned storefronts—or builds from the ground up on an empty lot—and he works with the neighborhood to ensure that the look won't spoil the atmosphere of the town. You'll never see a neon sign in a Douglas's window."

"That reminds me of the lightbox sign that the old Baptist church got a few years ago," said Miss Lottie. "They wanted it to say _First_ Church of Christ—but wrote it down wrong or something, so that the one that was delivered said _Worst _Church of Christ. It was supposed to be a mistake but Andrew Donnelly owned the store that made it up, and everybody knows that he is an affirmed atheist—whatever that is. But it can't be good, because Herb Davies is one, too, and Herb never was anything worth being. If ever a man was born under a dark cloud, that one was."

"I seem to remember that _you_ let Herb Davies take you to a dance, once," said Miss Ada, with a note of triumph in her voice. She was as sweet as a china shepherdess—but even china shepherdesses must give forth their own share of slings and arrows.

"Yes, I let him take me to a dance—not save my everlasting soul," Miss Lottie retorted. "I'd let the devil himself squire me around the floor as long as he didn't try to make no bargains with me, Adeline Owen. I'm _that_ fond of dancing."

"I used to wear something pink to every dance I ever went to," said Miss Ada, dreamily. "It was my color—my signature. Pink roses in my hair, or a pink ribbon at my waist. The fellows called me the Pink Lady. I had the complexion for it, and _you_ never had, Charlotte. Blue was your color. For all that we were identical, you spent too much time in the sun—like little Cecilia here. She's pretty as a picture but she'll never wear pink—but that Nancy-girl can wear it, even with her ruddy hair."

"She's a sweet girl, Nancy Blythe is," said Miss Lottie. "Said my hyacinth was like a dream when she was up last week. I wish she'd run over more often, but she can't be induced to. I'd give my left leg to know what happened to make that girl look so hunted betimes. I tried to pull it out of her, last night, when we were here, and the rest of you playing that infernal Scrabble game and making up words right and left." Miss Lottie had been beaten, badly, and her soul still smarted over it. "Who ever heard of 'perspicacious?'"

"I never did," said Miss Ada, gravely.

"Oh, you!" Miss Lottie eschewed the notion of solidarity in order to sling a few arrows of her own. "You would have failed out of Bright River school, Adeline, if the teacher hadn't been sweet on you. Nobody ever chose you for your brains."

"Yes—but I got chosen all the same," said Miss Ada with an air of great satisfaction.

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When the ladies had gone, Nancy stole up the stairs to sit with Cecilia in the twilight. She brought two plates on a tray, and the girls ate their supper together in a companionable silence. Nancy had been merry that morning—Cecilia had heard her singing in the kitchen—but her old melancholy had crept back as the sun leaned down the horizon. She was very quiet and faraway, and Cecilia could not eat a bit for watching her—and wondering. There had been a sheaf of music at the door that morning—handwritten, called 'Nancy's Tune.' Cecilia had thrilled to the pit of her romantic heart to see it, but Nancy had held it up with the tips of her fingers, and cast it into the fire.

"Nancy," she said, suddenly. "Won't you ever—tell me—what it is that happened to you?"

Nancy seemed to consider this. She dropped her lashes down to her cheeks and sat very still. When she raised them again she looked as though she would _like_ to speak—but couldn't—not just yet.

"I will tell you," she said slowly. "But not today—and maybe not even tomorrow."

Cecilia's eyes went soft. "I only want to know, dearest, so I can help you." She was surprised to find that Nancy _had_ become very dear to her—not just a cousin, but a friend. "I _hate_ to see you upset," she said, and meant it.

"I know," Nancy nodded. "I'll tell you," she said. "When—_if_—I am ever ready to speak of it."


	11. Nancy's Story

_A/N: I wanted everyone to know I bumped the rating on this story up to T for the sake of this chapter. If you find violent or domestic-violence situations triggering I urge you to skip this one. Thanks, Ruby. _

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"Cecilia," said Nancy, one crickety, golden-clouded evening at the beginning of June, "I want to tell you something about what happened to me. It is a very ugly story—I wonder if you will want to hear it, or hate me for telling it to you, when all is said and done?"

She sat with her arms clasped around her knees, on the little wrought iron bench that Cecilia had installed under the willow trees. They looked out to where the sun was lighting a path on the placid water, making Bright River live up to its name. The last rays of the sun touched against Nancy's face, lighting it up her profile so that she looked like some noble Christian woman of Roman days—Mary, Queen of Scots, learning her fate—Joan of Arc being tied to the stake. Cecilia put an arm around Nancy's shoulders, feeling quite motherly toward the girl.

"I could never hate you," Cecilia said. "There is nothing ugly enough that could make me do that. And I _want _to know what has upset you, so, dear—if you think that you can tell me."

"I didn't think I could at first, but now I think I must," Nancy said, laughing, but it was not a happy laugh. There was no joy in it. It was a hard, raspy sound. But her eyes stayed very resolute. "I think I shall die if I don't tell somebody, Cecilia. Mother and Father and Aunt Una and Grandmother—they know the details. Merry and Walt and Jake, I'm sure, have heard bits and pieces. But they don't want to hear it all and I want you to know everything—everything."

"Go ahead, then," Cecilia said softly. "Tell me."

What a wonderful, balmy season the summer had been so far—golden-cloudy days and spicy breezes. A season of color and gorgeousness and song. But now, for the first time since the sun had made its long-awaited reappearance, Cecilia felt a chill as she watched Nancy gather her shredded courage to her breast. She struggled with doubt—won against it—and began.

"It happened last fall—just before end of term exams," Nancy said, a little haltingly at first. "There was a party for all the upperclassmen—a dance. I was so excited to go. I had been studying so hard, you see—I wanted to win the Shelley scholarship, for dramatic literature. I really should have stayed home—I wish I had—but I _needed_ a break. I phoned up cousin Hannah and she came over to my dormitory from hers and we got ready together. We didn't have dates—it wasn't that kind of function. But still, we wanted to look nice and festive. I wore my yellow dress, with the round lace collar and the little cap sleeves. I had been saving that dress for a special occasion. Now," she shuddered, "I hate it. And I don't think I'll ever wear yellow again.

"The party was fine. Unremarkable in its fineness. I danced with a bunch of fellows—I didn't sit down once the entire evening. By the time everything broke up, my feet positively ached. It was well after midnight—I had missed the last streetcar—and Hannah had taken her coupe and gone home an hour before. She had a mathematics final in the morning. I hated her a little, even though she couldn't help it. But I _didn't_ relish the idea of walking twenty blocks in the cold. Everybody else seemed to have come with somebody else, and nobody could fit me into their car. They were all very sorry. I had almost resigned myself to walking when someone tapped me on the shoulder and told me he could give me a lift—he was going in my direction.

"It was Rich Moore. You know him—he grew up at the Harbour Head—that sleazy little fishing village. His family has always lived there. I knew him a bit, from home; I'd never been chums or even friendly with him, though. I didn't like him. He's so oily—and he has such a slimy way of looking girls over, from top to bottom, as though he wants to eat them. But Cecilia—I was so tired—I was lazy, and didn't want to walk. I told him I'd let him take me home. And something in my head _told_ me it was a bad idea. Oh, if _only I had listened_!"

Nancy's eyes were blazing and the self-hatred in her little voice was so evident that Cecilia laid a hand on her shoulder, tentatively. "Nancy—don't go on—not if it hurts you. You don't have to. I—I think I know—what you are going to tell me."

"I have to go on," said Nancy, grimly. "I can't leave this thing half-said, Cecilia. Do you know, I have never, since it happened, sat down and said the whole thing, from start to finish? Only drips and drabs, here and there. I _must_ go on—if you can stand to hear it. I think it will be good for me."

"I can stand it," said Cecilia. "If you can."

"Well," Nancy's eyes grew troubled as she segued back into the story. "I was very tired in the car, and a little dreamy from the good times that evening. Rich had the radio on, and it was so warm, and I was thinking of so many things that I didn't notice, at first, that he had turned down one of those country roads—toward Spofford Lane, you know near the outskirts of town. Instead of taking me back to the dorm. I didn't realize, at first. But then I _did_.

"'Where are you taking me?' I asked him, as he pulled the car over on the side of the road, under a low-hanging curtain of brush. 'Why are we here?'

"'Shut up,' Rich said, and he tried to kiss me.

"He—he overpowered me. He pinned me to the seat. I struggled against him, but he is so big and fat and strong. 'You Blythe girls have always been so stuck up and proud,' he was saying—and smiling. 'You never took any notice of me before, did you, Nan? Now you won't forget me, I suppose.' He—he ripped my dress, trying to get it—off, I suppose. He pulled my hair, and slapped my face. 'Don't pretend you don't want it,' he laughed. 'You know you do.'

"Cecilia—I had to _fight_ him. I'd never fought anybody before. I clawed at his face and I kicked at him. But it was like trying to hurt a _stone_. He just laughed at me. I thought—for a moment I thought—I thought the _worst_ would happen. And it very nearly did. But then there were headlights behind us and Rich was so surprised he let go of me. I took advantage of the moment and barreled out of the car and into the street. I ran toward the other car. How shocked they looked, to see me! My dress all torn—you could see what I was wearing _underneath_—Rich had caught me with a big ugly ring he'd been wearing when he slapped me and there was blood running over my face. Right here," Nancy touched a spot just above her eye, pushing her hair back to show a faint white scar.

"In the other car were some seniors, a boy and a girl I recognized—I think they were going to that spot to neck. It's very secluded, you see. The very thought made my stomach turn—that people should come to that terrible stretch of road for something like that—and I was sick. I was crying and the girl helped me into the car and held me tight. I shall always love her, for that, though I didn't even get her name. Rich had, when he realized what was going on, hightailed it out of there in a cloud of dust. The girl and her boyfriend took me to the hospital and I called Mother and Dad and they came. I needed stitches over my eye. Oh—oh Cecilia—I'll never be able to forget the way my daddy looked when I saw him! So angry—but also, I think, a little sickened. He had never looked at me that way before. I spent the night in the hospital and I talked to the police, but the others hadn't seen Rich or gotten the license plate, and so it was my word against his, and nothing ever came of it. Except the smirking officer told me to stay away from parties and to make sure I didn't _flirt_, if I couldn't stand what came of it. Daddy wanted to kill him—I think he would have, if Mother had not held him back.

"Even after all that had happened, I wanted to sit for my exams. I couldn't let a whole semester go to waste. Mother wanted me to take incompletes and come home but I was determined. Only I couldn't concentrate on anything. And—a very nasty rumor had started going around, about me. I don't know if Rich started it, or if those seniors had gotten the wrong idea of what had happened—or if they had had the right idea and the story had been twisted like in a game of Telephone, like we used to play in Rainbow Valley. People said that I _had_ wanted it—that I had _done_ it—and other people didn't think that I had, but they thought I was to blame for making Rich think I wanted to. People started to talk about the dress I'd worn that night, and by the end of a week you'd think it had been a bathing costume, not a dress with a skirt that fell to the knee. And people remembered how nice and friendly I'd always been, to girls and, _yes,_ to boys, and they said I was a flirt. And that Rich couldn't be blamed, if he _had_ done anything wrong, because I had tempted him. Even—even some of the teachers thought it. I could see it in their faces when they looked at me. Nobody but Hannah would talk to me, but even she, when I told her, said that she was _sure_ that nothing like that could happen at little Redmond, and was I very sure I wasn't embellishing things, just a little? I could have made her see, but I don't want to _hurt_ her. Cecilia—for all that people were saying—I _might as well_ have done what I didn't do—I _might as well have wanted it_. That's what they thought. It's such a horrible thing, you see, and nobody wants to believe it _can_ happen. And so it was easier—and better—for them if they could believe I had meant for it to happen, encouraged it.

"I didn't do well on my exams. All the facts just flew out of my head. I was supposed to do a comic recitation for my dramatics class. It fell horribly flat. The only thing I could think of was Rich saying _you Blythe girls…so proud…you won't forget me now_. And I couldn't. He was—he seemed to be—everywhere. I saw him all the time and he was—smirking at me. Laughing. And even when he wasn't there I saw him. I'd see the glint of light on somebody's pale hair—or a man in a dark suit, like Rich was wearing that night—and I'd be sick, all over again. I came home at the end of the term—and _he was there, too_. He even had the gall to wave at me, across the street, once. I—I didn't feel safe, Cecilia. At Ingleside—at my own home! I didn't dare leave the house and I didn't dare stay home alone. I couldn't sleep. Every time I looked in the mirror, I saw my scar, and the thought that I'd have a reminder of Rich with me my whole life was more than I could bear. And then—little things started showing up on the doorstep—flowers and candies and little love-poems. I know he is the one who left them—and now it is happening again, and I think he's followed me here. Oh, Cecilia, if he has—I don't know what I can do. There won't be anywhere left that I will feel safe. I feel—sure—he won't try what he did again—but I feel as though he is stalking me, like big game, and that I'll never get another moment's peace in my whole life. Not while Rich remembers me—or I remember him.

"Nobody knows what to say to me. Mother goes around pretending I've just been a little sick but am on the mend. She is so determinedly cheerful it's ghastly. Daddy is grave and solicitous of me, as though I might break, but he can't bear to look at me, because I think he feels like he has failed me. I don't dare tell Walt or Jake what happened. They would go wild, and do something rash. I—I tried to talk about it with Merry, once, and—she chided me. She was angry—at _me_. Why did I go home with some strange boy? Didn't I think of what could happen? Oh—she means well—she just choose to be angry because it is better than being scared and sad and afraid. But—it _hurts_ me. It seems I am _always_ hurting, these days.

"So there is only Grandmother to talk to—and Aunt Una, though I can't tell _her_ everything—and now, you, Cecilia. Cecilia—you have come to be such a _chum_ to me—and I couldn't bear it if you hated me. Do you, darling? _Do you_? Oh, I used to love the world—and now I am afraid of it. It hurts me—it hurts me so."

Nancy had remained mostly tearless throughout this whole speech, but now she buried her face in her hands and rocked, back and forth, back and forth. Cecilia caught her, fiercely, and held her tight. She rested her chin on the girl's ruddy brown hair. The sun picked out the red glints in it, and Cecilia suddenly felt as though she had stepped into another world, and as though it were her sister Susan she was holding in her arms. Nancy was only a baby, really—so young—too young to be feeling so hurt by life. Cecilia felt a keen sense of anguish. Again, she realized that sometimes she was powerless, and she hated it. She did not know what to say but she must say something. She scrambled for thoughts.

"Nancy-girl," she finally said. "I couldn't hate you. I _love_ you, darling. I don't think you did wrong. You were only too in love with the world. You really believed that people were good and kind. It isn't a mistake to be that way. It _isn't_ your fault that you believe the best of people."

"I don't anymore," Nancy sobbed. "I see murderers and thieves everywhere. I look at people and I only think how they could hurt me. You saw how I was with Lee, at Christmas. He only smiled and leaned in to me, and I screamed like he had _stabbed_ me. I am afraid I will never be able to trust a man again—never be able to be a wife, and mother—and these are things I have always wanted."

"And you _shall_ have them, if you want them," said Cecilia passionately. She would make sure of it—she would. "It is only like you _have_ been ill. Your mother isn't entirely wrong about that. Nancy, if you had had scarlet fever, you'd have to recuperate from it. It might take a long while. But with rest and treatment, you'd get better—you'd be good as new. This isn't so different from that. Your soul must recuperate from the blow it's suffered. You need care—and gentleness—and beauty. You need to trust yourself again. It will take a little time—but it _will_ happen."

For the first time since she had begun, there was a glimmer of hope shining in Nancy's eyes. "Do you _really_ think so?"

"I do."

Her shoulders slumped. "Oh, Cecilia. I don't think it could happen. It might—if I could be with you _all_ the time, and you could help me."

"And so you shall be and I _will _help you," Cecilia said. "Nancy, I've been meaning to bring this up with you—to ask you to stay with me, until the baby comes—and a little after. I need the extra help, and I'd rather have someone I love than a stranger. Grandmother got lucky when she had Susan Baker come in, but I don't think I'll have her luck. Will you stay here in Bright River, darling? Will you stay with me?"

"I—could," said Nancy, thoughtfully. "If—if you're sure."

"I am sure."

"And if mother says I might."

"I am sure she will." Cecilia did not say she had already talked the matter over with Aunt Faith and that Aunt Faith had thanked her many times, and even become tearful with her gratitude. "_I_ won't let anything happen to you, Nancy—and Marshall would rain fire down on anybody who tried to."

"How much—do you think—Marshall knows?"

"I _won't _tell him if that is what you are asking," Cecilia began, but Nancy shook her head.

"I wish you _would_," she said. "I wish you'd tell everybody. Not everything, of course—but just enough. Then they will know I'm not really a beast and just am a little wounded animal, unsure of where to find peace. I—I'd like it if people could understand me, instead of thinking me sulky and—and prideful."

"I will tell him, then," Cecilia said. "But Nancy—you needn't worry about a thing after this. I must stop working in a few weeks—for Baby's sake—so I'll have nothing to do at all but be nice and motherly to you—for practice—and because I love you, darling. We'll take long walks, and I'll reintroduce you to the world. It has become a stranger to you, and you must learn to love it again. I will help. Does that sound good to you?"

"It sounds—wonderful," said Nancy, with a little smile. But after that awful story, even that ghost of a smile was like the light breaking in waves over a shining city. Cecilia put her arms around Nancy, and held the girl close. She vowed she would do whatever she could to take this cup of suffering from her cousin's lips.

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_Thanks for all of the reviews so far! I hope you guys are enjoying the rewrite—I am. _

_Busy Nothings: Gilly is either a fisherman or in the Canadian Merchant Navy—I haven't really decided yet, LOL. _

_Gufa: Cecilia has Gog and Magog because Anne passed them to Una and Shirley before their wedding. I had her give them to Shirley to make up for the fact that he seems rather neglected by LMM in the books. They passed them along to Cecilia before her own wedding. _


	12. White Roses

"June is a merciless month," Lee Goddard said, as he and Cecilia walked the banks of the Bright River one pearl of an afternoon in the waning days of that month. Cecilia was getting rather too rotund to make the walk as easily as she had before, but she could not stay inside when such dear little clouds were languoring in the sky—when the west wind was blowing down from Hyacinth House in a marvel of perfume—when all the world seemed to be calling to her, _Cecilia! Cecilia Douglas! Come out and play!_ Of course she must heed its call. She was a friend of the bluebird, a sister to the summer skies.

"Merciless!" Cecilia gasped, in response to him, "How _can_ you call her that? Why—June is my friend—I won't have you saying cruel things about her."

"_She_ is cruel," Lee said firmly. "She is like a beautiful girl, who knows that we adore her—and taunts us with her beauty. 'Here I am,' she says, 'In all my gorgeousness—come and adore me'—and then she whirls off and leaves her sister July behind her. July is a fine girl but she wears her prettiness too blatantly. She has not June's darlingness—or her subtlety."

"I like July," Cecilia said—to whom, for the first time, the months could not pass quickly enough. She herself had an appointment to keep with Mistress August—that stately old dame.

"The months are like sisters," Lee said, ruminatively. "Imagine twelve girls in a family, each as different as the next. January is cold and cruel—February has been bitterly disappointed somehow. March is a shrew, or a sweetheart, depending on her mood—she doesn't know her own mind, herself, half the time. April and May are darlings. September is sorrowful over something, but has not lost the knack of optimism. October is the true beauty of the family. November and December are twins—one gray and practical and one charming and blue-eyed and sweet."

"Oh, _write_ it," Cecilia said, seeing visions of the gossiping, laughing, weeping, dancing girls in some stately old mansion on a hill. Quarreling, singing, dreaming—falling in and out of love. She had never been one for painting castles in the air, but she did fancy up that merry brood, and wanted to know them.

"Write them, Lee," she said. "Make them live so that I might make their acquaintance."

"I think I shall," said Lee, and the next time he came to the house where the brook and river met, he brought the first chapter to read to her. That walk by the river that June evening turned out to be the seed of a wonderful little posy of a book—a widowed doctor raising his twelve spirited daughters on the bright PEI soil. Cecilia fell in love with it at once and immersed herself in the sisters' complicated dreams and love affairs. It began to be a nightly ritual between Hyacinth House and the little house by the brook. Every night, Lee came down the hill and reported more on the sisters' doings.

Lee had a knack for writing in a timeless style which made the sweet, bygone times of yesteryear seem real and vivid again. He confessed that once he had started to write, he had not been able to stop. The words came pouring forth—here it was, he said, he knew, he _felt_—the book that would make him famous, or at least put his name upon the map. He was calling it, tentatively, _A Time to Dance, _the title taken from that old timeless passage in Ecclesiastesthat had always been Cecilia's especial favorite.

Every one of his listeners had a favorite among Lee's characters—Lee's 'girls,' they called them, as though they were flesh and blood—they _were_. Cecilia liked sunny _Junie_, who reminded her of Manon. Marshall preferred shy, funny, capable little _Augusta_, with her cap of black hair and her winning ways. Indeed, she was based on Cecilia, who never would have dreamed of imagining herself into a work of literature, and so did not notice the similarity. Miss Lottie and Miss Ada loved _Novie_ and _Dessa_, the older, matronly sisters by the doctor's first wife—and it was just as Lee had said, that they, too, would not recognize their own selves in print. Anne Blythe, who had been sent a copy of the opening chapters, wrote that she thought _April _and _May_, the pale, sweet twins, very charming, but she pitied poor _Janice_ her bitterness and wondered what had happened to make _Fabienne_ so sad and tragic. Nancy liked _Olivia_ the best—_Olivia_, the protagonist of the story—who was sought after by the all the men of her acquaintance, but who was destined for the poor, eloquent young minister, as they all knew, even early on.

"She is so happy and friendly and colorful," Nancy said, a little wistfully. "She's the kind of girl I'd like to be—the kind I wish I was."

Cecilia looked up sharply when she said it. The truth was, that bright, autumnal little _Olivia_ with her golden voice and winning airs had reminded Cecilia very much of Nancy—the old Nancy, that is—the girl that she had been before sorrow and fear had come into her life. She looked back over the paragraph that described _Olivia's_ ruddy hair, her creamy skin, her dancing eyes and flashing spirit. The little rosy cheeks and the habit of leaning her chin on her hand, dreamily. She was Nancy, to a T.

"Lee is in love with her," Cecilia thought, at once. "He _can_ see her that way—see through her sorrow—because he looks with the eyes of a lover. Oh, how awful—when Nancy cannot love him back! If it were only a year from now, or even a few months—then maybe... But not now—not as the way things stand now."

She would have been happy if she could have doubted it. But she could not. Another sheaf of white roses had arrived on the doorstep that morning, their brightness and perfection something like a reproach.

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"Hail fellow, well met," said Lee, when he encountered Cecilia the next day, coming up Hyacinth hill when he was coming down to the world below. "Are you going to visit with the ladies, Cecilia? They'll be glad to see you, looking so pink and rosy."

"Oh, Lee," Cecilia gasped, without greeting or preamble. "Are you in love with Nancy? _Are_ you?"

His face registered shock—and then a little foolishness, like a schoolboy caught out in a bare lie, wondering how he ever thought he might get away with it. He took her by the arm and walked with her to a shady under a pair of tall, stately, rustling maples. It was a shady, delightful nook—a delicious turn in the headland along which the brook babbled by on its way to join the slow-moving river. The famed hyacinth marched in an unbroken line up the hill, and a few little white wild rosebushes twined up and around a softly decrepit fence-post. Cecilia, short of breath as she was often, of late, settled down on a fallen, moss-covered log, but Lee kept standing, and reached down for a little maple stick, toying with it in his hands.

"I brought her roses from this bush, yesterday," he said, almost shyly, pointing at the roses, which winked like white stars through the dark leaves. "They reminded me of her—so pagan and white and bewitching. Of course I have been fond of Nancy, since I met her. There is something so mysterious about her—something so vulnerable. I want to hold her—and protect her—and love her, yes. I want to do that, too. Yes, I love her—I think I always have been in love with the dream of her—and now I want to love her in the flesh. Cecilia…do you think I have a chance? Do you think she could ever love me?"

"Oh, _no_," Cecilia said bluntly, and then felt ashamed at the look of startled despair that crept over his face.

"I know I am very ugly," he said, turning the maple switch over and over in his hands, utterly downcast. "But I have a heart built for loving—and I thought it could make up for my looks with that."

He looked so downcast—it was an expression entirely incongruous with his usually jolly freckled face, his gleaming hair. Cecilia reached up to lay a hand on his arm.

"Friend Lee," she said. "I did not mean to speak so harshly to you. I am not myself of late. You must forgive me for it."

"You didn't mean to 'speak harshly'—but you meant what you said," he laughed, but there was no amusement in it except for a perverse sort of self-mockery that Cecilia hated to hear. "Friend Lee—_friendly_—it is what the girls have always said about me. 'Lee Goddard is such a _chum_, such a _friendly_ fellow. Never handsome, or dashing. I haven't ever cared before. Why should I care what little minxes have to say about me? But to think of _her _saying it…" He trailed off but his face told Cecilia that it was another sort of thing entirely.

"Lee," said Cecilia, softly, deciding in an instant what must be done, "There is something I must tell you about Nancy. Will you sit with me and let me tell you? It is—very unpleasant. I must warn you. Please just sit—and listen—and don't try to talk to me before I've told you everything. It will be hard enough for me to say it without that."

Lee did as he was bidden. He did not speak, while Cecilia told him of what had happened—what had _almost_ happened—to Nancy on that dark country lane only a few months ago. He did not speak—but his gray-green eyes kindled with a tortured passion—his face, under his freckles first grew very white and then suffused with a choler that frightened Cecilia. Like her, Lee seemed to know where the story was headed, without having to say. But Cecilia pressed on. He _must_ understand. She told it just as Nancy had told it, to her, very eager that he should get the truth of things, and not be mixed up about it. When she got to the fever-pitch of the sad, ugly little tale, Lee could not stand it any longer. He jumped to his feet, his eyes aflame.

"No," he said, brokenly. "No. I can't bear it. Nancy—my _Olivia_—my dear, darling, innocent girl! I cannot hear you tell me that that beast—_broke_ her. That he used, and sullied her! _Her_!"

"He didn't," Cecilia said, quickly, "Oh, Lee—he didn't do _that_—but he _has _hurt her. Hurt her so terribly, of body and soul—and she is so afraid, now—"

"And I've made it worse for her," said Lee, "Because I didn't know, and I pursued her, and tried to make love to her—yes, I have tried it, base thing that I am! I have hurt the sweetest thing in the world—I shall never forgive myself. These roses—I left them for her—and they have only caused her grief. These _damnable_ roses!"

"No—no!" Cecilia cried, but he was too quick for her. Lee took up the little maple switch, and applied himself with the full force of his anger and his hatred for Rich Moore to the sweet, innocent little rosebushes. He swung at them again and again, shredding the small, pure, white blossoms that he had gathered so recently for his little love. A heart's offering, and now they might be Rich Moore incarnate. The petals began to tear, and tatter, and Lee beat at them fiercely and more fiercely still. The little branches were dessicated and hung in shreds, the green marrow showing through the broken places, and the heady, cloying scent of the dead roses was over everything.

Lee stopped—looked at what he had done—and gave a short, sharp cry under his breath, as if he had done another terrible thing without quite meaning to. He dropped his avenging sword, and buried his face in his hands.

"I'll kill him," Cecilia heard him mutter. "Oh, Nancy—_Nancy_."

She put her little hand up, to comfort him, but stopped short of touching him. She had not expected Lee to respond with such a wellspring of feeling. So he _did_ love Nancy—and she had thought it might only be a playful thing. She had not seen that it sprung deep from the heart's core. Oh—how tragic—it was always tragic when love went out into the world and missed its mark.

She dropped her hand, and backed through the maple grove and down the hill, leaving Lee alone with his pain.


	13. Ghosts of Yesterday

It stormed through mid-July—a whole rainy tumultuous week in which the sky seemed to be roiling with clouds and the sound of distant thunder was heard late into the night. The residents of the little house woke one morning to find that the river had climbed out of its banks and the little brook was swollen and fast-moving. The wind had tossed the limbs of several trees onto the roof and the flagstone walk. When Cecilia went up to the attic to check the roof she found an inch of water covering the floor. The old leather trunks stacked under the eaves were beginning to give off a warped, wet smell. She called up to Hyacinth Hill and alerted her landladies. Miss Ada came down the hill on the first day of the sun's return to inspect the damage.

"Most of these are Father's old things," she said, crouching in the damp attic—Marshall had cleaned up most of the water, but it was still a rather soggy little place. "He was the doctor in Bright River before Harper came, you know."

"I didn't," said Cecilia, sitting back with her hand on her belly, as Miss Ada fitted several small keys into the lock of the largest trunk, which had a large water-stain spreading across the ox-blood leather. Finally, she found the one that worked, and the lid sprang open to reveal the dry, musty smell of old paper.

"Yes—we were doctor's girls, Charlotte and I," said Miss Ada. "People said we put on airs about it, but we didn't put on airs—we _had_ airs, plain and simple. They came natural to us. Pa was frightfully clever. He kept good records. I remember him sitting down every night to write up the day's happenings in his books. See?"

Miss Ada, handed Cecilia a large leatherbound record book. Cecilia opened it, curiously, and read. _14 April 1887. _Good heavens! _Set Gideon Sloane's ankle. _Her eyes roamed down the page, taking in bits and pieces, until she saw a familiar name that made her jaw drop. _12 June: outbreak of typhoid in B. River and Avonlea_. _Called to consult on Blythe case. Prognosis grim. No recovery expected. _

"Oh, Miss Ada!" she breathed. "This entry mentions my grandfather—he had typhoid—it was what made my grandmother realize she loved him, finally. _Your _father tended to him. 'Prognosis grim'—they expected him to die—but he didn't, he got better and lived another sixty years. Think of what would have happened if your father had been right, about him. Why—none of us would be here—" Cecilia touched her belly, again, protectively, at the very idea. How many things, she thought, had to go right so that a person might come into existence! If Grandfather had not lived—if Marilla Cuthbert had made Matthew take the little orphan back and exchange her for the boy that had been promised—if Walter Blythe had not died at Courcelette. If Marshall _had_ died at Caen, if Blythe had not met Manon and broken their engagement, if a certain fall from a certain tree had ended more unpleasantly than it did. If Susan had never died, and they had never come back to the Island to live. If, if, if…there were too many ifs for it to be coincidence, and Cecilia suddenly felt the marvelous hand of her Creator in every aspect of her life. What a good, wonderful, _wise_ God there was, directing the flow of her fate—the flow of everyone's fates.

"I'd love to look through these papers," she said to Miss Ada. "They will be a nice diversion for me while I'm laid up these next few months—they'll make me feel like I am working, and perhaps I will learn something about my patients' history. May I look them over?"

"Bless the child!" said Miss Ada, smiling. "_I _see no reason why you mightn't. And I'm certain Charlotte won't object. She'd love to see these old things of Pa's—she was his pet. 'Ada has the looks—but my Charlotte has the brains,' he'd always say."

"Didn't that make you mad?" Cecilia asked, curiously.

"Not at all," said Miss Ada, complacent to the core. "I was glad to have such a smart sister. Charlotte and I never quarreled over anything or even had a jealousy toward each other, except when it came to Charlie DeWitt."

"Where is Miss Lottie today?" asked Cecilia, flipping through some old receipts of the old doctor's.

"She slipped on the wet step after the storm and bruised her—_sitting area_," said Miss Ada, delicately. "Don't look up so concerned, child. She's fine—it's her pride hurts her more than anything else. Oh, look—here are some little baby clothes in this trunk—they were made up for our little brother, Samuel. What a dear baby he was—he never stopped being a baby to me, though he lived to be forty-five. With some bleaching they might do for _your_ little one. They are in very good condition."

Cecilia exclaimed over the pretty, old-fashioned little dresses, and set them aside to take downstairs.

"Here are a lot of mother's dresses," said Miss Ada, a wistful note creeping into her voice. "Mother did love a pretty frock. She was something of a clothes- dog—I think is what you girls call it."

"Clothes-hound," said Cecilia, stifling a smile. Indeed—the dresses were, if old-fashioned, very lovely. The high ruffled collars and shirred sleeves, and little pearl buttons were just sweet. There were several pairs of pretty buttoned boots, and a rose silk that reminded Cecilia, in silhouette, of her grandmother's wedding dress, which had also been her own.

"Perhaps I'll take some of these and alter them to fit me and Charlotte," Miss Ada said, thoughtfully. "Mother was such a tiny woman—but the dresses might be let out. It would be such a nice way of feeling—near to mother again. She has been dead these fifty years, you know. She died in '98—just about the time the Charlie DeWitt business happened. For the longest time I felt that I had killed her with my wickedness—I was every day of fifty before I thought that maybe it was just an unhappy coincidence. Charlotte took it hard—on top of everything else. Well—I've done some terrible things in my life. I suppose I'll burn in hell for them in the next." Miss Ada said this last part as matter-of-factly as if she planned to have peas with her supper. "I wish I could find that old fur collar of Mother's. It would look well on Charlotte and she always loved it. Dear—you look in that trunk over there and see if you can find it. Here is the key."

Cecilia fitted the key into the lock of the trunk nearest to her, and lifted the lid. There was the smell of lavender, a few dessicated sprigs still holding the ghost of scent in them. She did not see a fur stole, but she parted layers of tissue paper and she _did_ see a beautiful, beaded wedding gown, that had once been white, but was now a rather dull yellow. Still—the handiwork on it, the fine stitches, were enough to make her gasp.

"Oh, Miss Ada—I think I've found your mother's wedding gown."

"No," said Miss Ada, scooting over to look. "Not mother's—it was Lottie's."

"Lottie wore—_this_—when she married Mr. Worth?"

"Bless you, she wore navy blue when she married Mr. Worth," Ada said. "This was the dress she was to be married to Charlie in."

Cecilia shook the gown gently from its folds and studied it. Ada looked on placidly over her shoulder, and spoke again as if she had had no part in the wedding that never took place.

"Charlotte was such a brash, hardy girl, that people expected her to be stout, but she wasn't. She had a twenty-two inch waist—her shoes were size three. There they are—see the pearls on the toe? Father sent to Montreal for them, for her. And her veil," Miss Ada rummaged in the trunk until she came up with the gauzy, yellowed cloth, ringed with wax orange blossoms that were beginning to be melted out of shape with heat and neglect. "Came from _New York_. I remember her trying on her finery and parading around our room in it—it was then that I decided to see if I could take Charlie from her. I wish I hadn't decided it—and I wish I hadn't been able to. I wouldn't have met with any success except that they had quarreled—Charlie wanted to move to Carmody and farm there. Charlotte said _she_ wasn't going to be any farmer's wife—though she would have come round to it in the end. She just needed to be against a thing before she could be for it—she was always like that. Well, she never had time to come around to the idea, because of me. And then after I lost interest, I suppose Charlie thought she wouldn't have him back, because he moved away and nobody ever heard from him again."

"How terrible," said Cecilia, fiercely. "And Lottie never contacted him—or tried to explain?"

"Imagine Charlotte Carew doing a thing like that!" Miss Ada said scornfully. "The Carews are a proud people—and Mother was a Macneill, you know. Once the Macneills have decided on a thing, they generally follow through. I urged her to do it—or I would have if she was speaking to me—but she never did, and the next year she married Archie Worth. A bad business, that—but Mother had died and Charlotte had decided that life wasn't about living anymore. Pa wept through the ceremony—and I did—but Charlotte stood there with her head held high. Thinking of Charlie DeWitt all the time she said her vows—I could see it in her eyes."

Cecilia had uncovered a little gold picture frame. She opened it, and saw two sepia-toned photographs, side by side.

"That's Charlotte," said Miss Ada, pointed to a pretty, if heavy-browed, girl with masses and masses of dark hair. "And that's Charlie. Oh, I'd forgotten his horrible moustache! How I hated to kiss him, because of it. But he was quite handsome for all that. And you can see in his eyes how much in love with her he was. But I could see it, then, too. Perhaps that's why I never liked kissing him."

Charlie DeWitt _was_ handsome—and Miss Lottie's eyes had a sparkle to them that Cecilia had never believed _could_ be there. Oh, what a shame—and a pity—that these two sweet young people should have to be parted! Think of all the children, and grandchildren, that hadn't been born because they had been.

"I wonder if Charlie DeWitt is alive—and where he is, now, if he is," mused Cecilia.

"It wouldn't matter if he was," said Miss Ada. "Charlie had a Macneill mother himself. Not _our_ branch—but his branch was even stubborner. I did hear, in '02, or '03, that he had married and moved to the States. Likely he's dead—his father dropped dead when he was only forty, and his grandfather, at thirty-nine. Well—I don't quite like thinking about Charlie being dead. And let's put this dress up. I can live, mostly, with what I've done but for all that I'm human and it pinches at my conscience to see this dress. Charlotte sewed most of it with her own hands—how happy she was, when she was making it. What a beast I was, to ruin things!"

"It was awful," said Cecilia. "But Miss Ada—you're a different person now than you were, then. It is—rather—hard for me, sometimes, to realize that you ever could have done a thing like that. You are so sweet, I can't believe it of you."

"Do you know, I can't believe it of myself?" Miss Ada confessed. "I think I must have been bewitched. But Mother was so ill, and I was the one to take care of her. Charlotte never liked a sickbed. And I loved my mother but there were times when I hated having to be the one to see all the ugly parts of her those long months. I'd feed her and clean her, and Charlotte would breeze in and read to her from a magazine for a half-hour and then breeze out. I used to hear her laughing with Charlie while I was up in that hot little room. I suppose I began to associate Charlie with a sort of carefree, easy way of being because of how Charlotte laughed when she was with him. And that's why I wanted him—not to hurt Lottie, but to have that kind of happiness for myself."

"Oh, Miss Ada," said Cecilia, feeling a flash of sympathy for the poor woman. Picturing her in the stifling sickroom, working over her mother's wasted body, trying to stem the tide of death and ease her suffering It must not have been easy for her, either. How complicated things were! How Miss Ada must have resented her mother, and Lottie! What strain, and sorrow and anger—yes, _anger_—she must have felt. It did not excuse what Miss Ada had done, but it made it understandable. Cecilia's brow wrinkled in thought, and her cheeks flushed so pink with feeling that Miss Ada frowned and pressed her wrinkled hand against the girl's brow.

"Come downstairs right this minute," she said sternly—or as sternly as a pink shepherdess lady _can _be. "It is too hot for you up here in your condition. I will go right into the kitchen and make you a cup of peppermint tea, to cool your blood. I know you don't truck with natural remedies, being a proper doctor yourself, but even my father held to the benefits of peppermint tea. I will also get you a cushion for your feet. And then I'll have that Nancy-girl play something nice and light for you on the piano—what a pretty voice that girl has. She sings like an angel, she does."

Cecilia let herself be led downstairs and Miss Ada bustled into the kitchen, and Nancy _did_ sing for her cousin as she was bidden. She had found some sheet music in the piano bench and worked her way through some old love songs, vintage of the last century. When Cecilia heard them, she pictured young Lottie singing with a handsome Charlie—dancing with him. She heard their low, loving laughter echoing through the hallways. Oh, if only there was a way to go back—and right those old wrongs.


	14. Plans and Preparations

In the first days of August, Cecilia participated in a little ritual that mothers the world over had done since the dawn of time: she made ready a space to receive her baby. The little room over the stairs, which had previously held a little day bed and odds and ends, was transformed into a nursery. Her friends helped her in her task. Blythe and Lee painted the walls a pale spring green and hung a wallpaper border of alphabet blocks. Nancy whitewashed a chest of drawers and an old, willow-bottomed rocker to match the crib that Marshall had assembled with only one spontaneous outbreak of blasphemous language. Cousins Joy and Trudy and Bertha sent heaps of baby clothes, which Misses Ada and Lottie laundered and ironed and folded and augmented with offerings of their own. Aunt Rilla sent a layette, wonderfully and fearfully embroidered, and the child's only living great-grandmother sent a set of matted, framed fairy prints to hang on the walls.

Manon came over one cool, pearl-gray day, and helped Cecilia put the finishing touches on the room. They hung a mobile of stars above the crib, and set lamps in the shape of teddy bears on the dresser. A soft, pale afghan was draped over the rocker, a pair of gingham muslin curtains hung, and then the girls sat back and admired their handiwork as the late afternoon sun slanted in through the window panes and made soft shapes on the carpeted floor.

"This room looks just like the kind of place for sweet dreams," said Manon.

"All that's missing is the baby," Cecilia laughed. "Oh, Manon, it reminds me of a story about the Calum Macneills. Several years ago, when their baby was born, they were summoned to town by a great-aunt—a rather fearful personage who they were desperate to impress, since she was a spinster, rather elderly, and had a great deal of money. They'd named the baby for her—Ethelena, isn't it awful?—and they were a flummox getting read to visit. They dressed in their best, washed the car, and were in such a tizzy when they left over whether or not they'd be too early, or too late. Well, as soon as they'd arrived, they realized something was amiss—_they'd left the baby at home in her crib_. Just plain forgot about her! Isn't it _awful_?"

"You'd never do a thing like that," said Manon, comfortingly, hearing the anxiety that was there, under the laughter—as a best friend does.

"I mightn't do exactly _that_," Cecilia admitted. "But last night I dreamt that Baby was _here_—and I was trying to bathe it and it kept slipping out of my hands. And finally it turned its little head and began to lecture me in perfect, grammatical English, about what a horrid mother I was."

"I dreamed last week that I had the baby and it had little pointed ears like a kitten," Manon confessed. "Everyone was terribly upset by it—but I didn't mind—to me it seemed like babies with normal ears weren't half as nice as mine. Cecilia—you can't keep calling it 'it' and 'Baby.' Haven't you and Marshall settled a name yet?"

"We've drawn up lists and argued fearsomely over it," Cecilia sighed. "And yet we aren't any closer to figuring it out than we were before. The only thing we can agree upon is that Marshall doesn't want a 'junior.' He thinks we have an alarming tendency to re-use names in our family, and that it's high time for some fresh blood, so to speak. He likes Edward for a boy—and Tabitha for a girl. 'But _who_ are Edward and Tabitha?' I asked him. I don't want just any name for my wee angel. I want a name that _means_ something. And there are so many people I'd like to honor. I—I always thought I'd like to name my baby for Susan, if it is a girl. But Mother showed a little superstitious streak. She thinks it might be bad luck."

"What about naming the baby 'Una?' if it's a girl?" asked Manon. "It's a sweet name."

"But we'd have to tack on Mary for its other grandmother and they don't flow together," said Cecilia firmly. "And someone would feel slighted, with their name as the middle name and hardly ever used. It is the same way with 'Miller' and 'Shirley' for a boy. Actually, Mother and Dad have been the only ones who haven't lobbied for their own names to be used. Aunt Rilla thinks _somebody_ should use Bertha, since she never had a chance to. Uncle Jem says you can't do much better than James if you're look for a good, solid moniker for a boy. Grandmother has enough Annes to satisfy her soul, and she was never much accustomed to the name herself, but she did admit to me that those old names from the Story Club of yore keep popping into her head—Geraldine and Reginald and things like that. Uncle Jerry is convinced that we will give our child some romantic, outlandish name—it's the trend he says, and he's never quite accustomed himself to Joy's Gabrielle Alexandrina. Miss Lottie and Miss Ada have settled on Winnie, though why and how and wherefore they chose it is beyond me. Lee likes those old Biblical names—Sarah and David and Ruth and Naomi—and Nancy likes names that sound like they belong in either a history of Rome or a modern soap opera: Aurelia and Augusta and Julia."

"But what do _you_ like?" Manon asked, quite reasonably.

"I—don't—know," Cecilia laughed. "If I could only know if my little baby was to be a boy or a girl—if I had a gut feeling, one way or the other—perhaps I could decide."

"Wouldn't you like a little girl?" Manon suggested, hopefully. "A sweet little girl—and she and mine could be best friends, as me and you are. I am sure my baby is a girl—I have felt it from the beginning—Blythe says I can't know, but I declare it _is_ going to be a girl. And Cecilia—if it is—I am going to name it for you."

"Cecilia is a good, strong name, and it is the name of Blythe's grandmother," said Cecilia, whose modesty could not quite let her accept such an honor without some protestation. "Oh, Manon—how nice if you did! Then it would be Cecilia Meredith come full circle to Cecilia Meredith. I wonder, sometimes, if my little girl-grandmother ever imagined that one day her descendants would be like Abraham's—as numerous as grains of sand or stars in the sky?"

"I'd name her Cecilia for _you_," said Manon, determined there should be no misunderstanding of what she was saying. "Cecilia—do you realize that we have been friends for ten years now? And do you remember how I was the day you came into my life? Nobody had ever loved me, before. I'd spent my life being neglected and resented and _hated_—yes—and I hated myself. What a self-destructive, unhappy wretch I was! I didn't think anybody ever would love me. But then you came into my life and _did_, and taught me to love myself—to seek love out, and to give it in return. I have a home—and a family—and I am loved, now. And I am happy—so happy—and I never thought I would be until you showed me that it could happen."

Cecilia blinked her eyes, hard, to dispel the tears that were gathering there. She sat up and put her arms around Manon's shoulders and held her friend, tight. She smelled the lavender that Manon wore in her hair, which gleamed like old gold in the afternoon light coming into the little room where her baby would sleep—soon. She, too, was happy—the years unfolded before her like a splendid carpet, a string of days to be treasured and laughed over.

"May God keep us _all _just as happy as we are now," she prayed, in a low voice.

Manon laughed—it was either laugh or cry—and there was a sound in the driveway below. "There is Blythe," she said, her eyes sparkling, "Come to pick me up and take me to the Glen for his mother's birthday. It's going to be a proper bash—Aunt Di and all of her folks are coming, too, and even Bertha and Jordan and little Tess from Boston. We're going to stay a week—we'll be back next Friday. Oh, Cecilia—do you realize?—by next Friday you could have a little darling baby sleeping in this very room."

"I'm ready for it—_him_, or her," Cecilia said. "It has been sweet being just the two of us together for so long—but it will be sweeter still to be acquainted in person. Don't go yet—I have something to give you to take to Aunt Nan and Aunt Di—just a little posy apiece, in honor of their nativity."

Cecilia ran down to get the presents, and stood for a while in the driveway, talking to cousin Blythe. Marshall came out and joined her, and they stood together on the porch and waved off the travelers. Inside the house, Lee and Nancy were playing a duet on the piano and singing,

_When the deep purple falls_

_Over sleepy garden walls_

_And the stars begin to flicker in the sky…_

Marshall went in to unpack the basket of foodstuffs Lee had brought from Hyacinth Hill, but Cecilia stood where she was and watched the deep purple twilight come down around the hills and river like a curtain of darkness being gently whisked across the world. She heard the cheeping of the crickets and the sleepy twittering of the birds in the trees. The wind rushed through the catkins by the brook. Inside, Nancy laughed—a golden sound. It happened more and more lately. Marshall was whistling their song where they laid it off, with no end of dips and swoops and trills. What a nice daddy he would be! And perhaps she would be a good mother herself—a kind mother—an attentive and loving mother, just as her own had been.

"We can't wait to meet you," she told her baby, in a whisper. "And we're ready for you. So come as soon as you can, darling."


	15. The Birthday of My Life is Come

My heart is like a singing bird

Whose nest is in a watered shoot;

My heart is like an apple tree

Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;

My heart is like a rainbow shell

That paddles in a purple sea;

My heart is gladder than all these

Because my love has come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down

Hang it with vair and purple dyes;

Carve it in doves and pomegranates

And peacocks with a hundred eyes

Work it in gold and silver grapes

In leaves and silver fleur-de-lys;

Because the birthday of my life

Is come, my love is come to me.

-Christina Rosetti,

One morning, when a windy golden sunrise was billowing over the gulf in waves of light, a certain weary stork flew over the shining Bright River on his way from the Land of Evening Stars. Under his wing was tucked a sleepy, starry-eyed, little creature. The stork was tired, and he looked wistfully about him. He knew he was somewhere near his destination, but he could not yet see it. The big, blue house on the hyacinth-covered hill had its good points; but no stork possessed of any gumption would leave a new, velvet baby there. An old stone cottage, out of town a ways, with the air of poetry about it, looked more promising, but did not seem quite the thing either. Perhaps—one day—the stork would leave a bundle there, but not this day. Where, then? The stork brightened up. He had caught sight of the very place—a little white house nestled against a big, whispering firwood, with a spiral of blue smoke winding up from its kitchen chimney—a house which just looked as if it were meant for babies. The stork gave a sigh of satisfaction, and softly alighted on the ridge-pole.*

An hour later, a car turned down the lane toward the house where the brook and river met. It was moving at a rather fast speed, but a reasonable one, considering the important errand its driver and passenger had embarked on. The car came to a stop in the drive, and a radiant, jubilant looking middle-aged man unfolded himself from the driver's seat—but not before his anxious, quivering wife had launched herself up the path and steps and onto the porch and into her son-in-law's arms.

Marshall picked Una Blythe right up off the ground and twirled her around.

"Hello, little grandmother," he said, setting her back on her feet. His green eyes sparkled, and a smile lit his face. "What a pretty grandmother you are! It suits you, I have to say."

"Why didn't you call me sooner?" asked Una, fiercely and terribly—as fiercely and terribly as her sweet nature would allow.

"There wasn't time," said Marshall, laughing. "Almost as soon as Cecilia told me to call for the doctor it was over—your daughter, who oftentimes has trouble making up her mind to do one thing or another, wasn't afflicted with indecision over _this_. When Cee made up her mind to have our baby, she did it with remarkable speed and gusto."

"And she is all right—and the baby?"

"Cecilia is right as rain in body but she seems to have lost her wits," Marshall said gravely, but his eyes were dancing impishly as of days of yore. "She can think of nothing and seems to see nothing but the baby. Dr. Harper assures me it will pass—in thirty years or so. Come in—come in—and meet your little grandson."

Cecilia was sitting up in bed, her hair a dark cloud around her shining face. It was just as Marshall had said—she had eyes only for the little sleeping bundle in her arms. Una sat down beside her girl and looked down at the perfect little face of her first grand-child. The baby had a sweet, heart-shaped face—Cecilia and Marshall's dark hair—a small, perfectly tip-tilted nose—rosy red lips in a cupid's bow. Already, the beginnings of the Blythe chin could be seen in his face. She took one of the little, long, graceful baby hands, each finished with a perfect, tiny nail, and bent her head and kissed it gently. When she lifted her face again, her eyes were brimmed with tears. Once, Una had not dared to dream that such joy could be possible in her life. And now here was the glorious sight of her baby with a baby of her own. Oh, how wrong Una had been—how deep life was—and wide!

"And what frivolous, romantic, poetical name have you given my grandson?" Shirley asked, trying to be stern but failing as he reached out to stroke the downy hair.

Marshall and Cecilia shared a saucy look.

"We decided it democratically," Marshall explained. "We each picked a name from our family connection to contribute. I chose Bryant—for the famed Miss Cornelia, without whom I would not be here today—and Cecilia has chosen Blythe, just to be contrary, I suppose. And so our boy is Blythe Bryant Douglas, and I am so delighted with him that I don't even care he shares a name with my former rival. Besides, I'm sure he'll pick up a nickname in no time, and so all our agonized decisions will be for naught."

"Blythe Bryant Douglas," said Shirley, "Miss Cornelia herself would have said that it is a name that will wear well, and not fade in the washing. Little Blythe—little Blythe."

The baby, as if he recognized his own name, yawned and made a sleepy sound, and opened his eyes, which were so deep and dark brown, when most babies' are blue, that Una unknowingly gave him that nickname his father had predicted then and there. "Oh, Shirley—look at his eyes—just exactly your color—the color of brook-water."

"My own little brown boy," Cecilia murmured, smiling. "My little brook-brown baby."

And by the end of his first day on the planet, 'Brook' was how he was known, far and wide, by the members of his tribe.

The little house was abuzz with visitors. All those good, proper people, who knew they should wait a proper interval before visiting, found they could not, and hied themselves to pay fealty to the little prince. Nancy hung over his bassinette, singing, and Lee Goddard carried that image of her in his heart, next to a store of secret, precious, unutterable hopes. How sweet and beautiful she looked, having laid off her cares and worries on that joyous day! Misses Ada and Lottie passed Brook between themselves with a shared satisfied air, finally having the baby they craved to coo over. Jem Blythe drove his mother down to meet her latest great-grandchild, and Anne found herself very well-pleased with him.

"Of all the grandchildren and great-grandchildren, he looks the most like Gilbert," she sighed. "It is good—_good_—to see his face again, in this young one. And little Brook has escaped my red hair—and I'm _so_ glad."

Romy, who had howled with disappointment over her little nephew not being a little niece, reconciled herself to the baby once she saw him in the flesh.

"He's pretty nice," she admitted. "And as soon as he's old enough I'm going to teach him to throw—and fish—and whistle, as soon as I learn to do that, myself. I'm eleven, now, you know, and that's pretty old—old enough to do most anything, I suppose. I'll teach him things and make sure he _never_ swears, and if he doesn't use tobacco or drink until he's twenty-one I'll buy him a gold watch. I've already started saving my pennies for it. I only have thirteen cents now, but I suppose I'll have enough laid by in twenty-one years to get it for him. Hello, little baby! I'm your Aunty Romy and I'm gonna play with you and love you to bits _and_ bits."

But none was so pleased with the baby as Mary Vance. She sat upon the white-painted rocker as a throne and rocked back and forth with a self-satisfied air.

"He's the prettiest of all my grandchildren," she said. "And _very_ aristocratic in his features. That's my folks, you know—they came from something, even if they ended up with nothing in the end. Oh, I wish Cornelia could see him—it would be her 'great-grandchild' too—and how tickled she'd be to know you named him for her. But I suppose she does know, somehow. I wonder if, when she first decided to take me in, if she ever thought that she'd raise me up to be such a respectable lady, in the end? I'm sure she never pictured me a grandmother. Oh, Miller, Miller—he's the picture of Marshall, isn't he? And look at the shape of his eyes—Shirley's color but that almond shape's all mine. And he's Una's nose. It does my heart such good to know that my blood and hers flows together in his little veins. Oh, I wish Cornelia were here—and my own ma and pa—and all the Moores, Balls and Vances—to see him, and gloat over him. But I guess I'll have to do their share my own self."

Blythe and Manon came up to visit when they returned from the Glen, Blythe awed and wonderstruck at his little namesake, and Manon looking peaked and pale, but happy nonetheless. When Cecilia remarked sharply that Manon did not look well, she simply waved her hand carelessly. She had been talked over and bossed over by Joy and Mother Nan to within an inch of her life, she said, and there was nothing wrong with her that a week back under her own roof wouldn't cure. She lay next to Cecilia in bed, with the baby between them, and tickled Brook's face with the ends of her golden hair.

"I never would have expected, _cherie_, so many years ago, that you and Marshall would get your act together," she said. "How glad I am, since this little man is the result. Oh, Cecilia, did you ever dream of him, back in the war days? Did you think forward to this day when we were huddled in the basement with the bombs falling all around us, and hope and love and _life_ seemed so far away?"

"I didn't dare to," Cecilia admitted, through the lump of happy tears lodged in her throat. "I never expected to be so glad—and contented—and full of joy. Oh, Manon—I thought I was proud the day I became a doctor—but that day pales in comparison to the day I became a _mother_. And Marshall says he doesn't know how we muddled along before little Brookums came. He wants to do it all over again as soon as possible."

Cecilia had a joyful week—the best of her life. Each day she woke to Brook. Marshall got up and brought the baby from his basket, and Cecilia nursed him, and then Marshall held him while she ate the breakfast in bed that Nancy brought up to her. She marked the days, and hours, by each of her baby's new discoveries. He learned to open and close his hands—he spent hours looking at the pattern of the leaves on the ceiling—he developed the habit of snuggling against her so cunningly, and trustingly, in a way that made her heart melt. She did not miss her practice, or think back longingly to the days when it had been just Marshall and her. Those days had been very sweet, but these were sweeter.

"And we shall all be very happy for all our lives together," she said, and really believed it. Her own happiness was so great that it encircled and extended to all that she loved. It would protect them from any harm that might come. This she believed wholeheartedly, as her religion. So it was a shock when, at the end of the week, Marshall came into the nursery with a gray, frightened look on his face and told her that Manon had been rushed to the hospital in Grafton and was fighting for her life against a deadly hemorrhage. By morning the next day she was out of danger, but she had lost the baby, and Cecilia learned, for the first time since Brook had come, that there is never any happiness so great that it cannot give away, in a moment's notice, to sorrow.

*The first paragraph is taken from _Anne's House of Dreams_ by Lucy Maud Montgomery.


	16. Love Forsaken

Manon came home from the hospital in the prettiest part of September, in the golden days when the fields were just beginning to be bleached by the sun; when the sky and gulf were such a perfect, seamless matching blue that one met the other with no delineation between the two. It was a ripe, ruddy time of year, with delicious woodsy tints and crispness in the air. It would have been a very beautiful day if nothing had happened to Manon—if she did not look so white and weak and wan as Blythe lifted her from the car and set her gently in her chair—she was not strong enough to walk yet.

Cecilia had arranged a very little homecoming gathering for her friend. Just herself and Marshall and the ladies from Hyacinth Hill, who had spent all day cleaning and readying the house for the invalid. Joy had come from Lowbridge to keep house for her brother while Manon recuperated. She had spent hours in the kitchen, whisking up good, wholesome meals to tempt her sister-in-law's appetite back into shape. Cecilia had gone all over the house setting out flowers everywhere—roses on the piano, lilies and hyacinth on Manon's bedside table, bowls of fragrant wisteria on the windowseat in the stair landing. The whole house was a bower. Cecilia had wanted to remind her friend that there was beauty, and love, in the world. But Manon sneezed three times as soon as she was wheeled into the house, and so the flowers were taken out again.

But—"How good you all are," she said, a little bleakly and mechanically, as she looked around her little home. Cecilia knew she was listening to sounds only she could hear—a baby's contented coos, little feet running overhead. But she was determined to make an effort. Manon was so pale—her jolly, snubbed nose seemed incongruous in that thin, tragic face. Her hair was lank and dull and nothing like the 'gorgeous snake' it had always been before. She ate a little of the soup Joy had prepared for her, but her wrist trembled with the effort of lifting the spoon.

"I'm tired," she said, leaning her face against Blythe's shoulder. "I'd like to lie down."

The hardest of the preparations had been deciding what to do with the baby's room. Manon had not gotten far in her own planning, but she had gotten far enough. Cecilia packed away the love-wrought little garments with sprigs of lavender, her heart breaking as she boxed up so many hopes and dreams. Marshall had come over and painted the walls, freshly pink, back to a blank, white color.

Cecilia had had some misgivings about their actions. She did not think it exactly right that they should erase all the evidence of the baby. She worried that it would upset Manon, that Manon would think that they were trying to pretend nothing had ever happened. She thought, too, that perhaps, when Manon was stronger, it would be _better_ to do it herself. She might like to keep these little things around for a while instead of having them torn from her. And it might be healing, in a way, for her—a way of saying goodbye. But Blythe had been insistent—he believed it was for the best, and he did not want his wife to be so upset. She was weak, still, and though they expected her to make a full recovery, he was not taking any chances. He did not want anything that might upset her around the place.

When Manon saw the room, re-painted and empty, a little light went out of her eyes.

"Oh, Manon," Cecilia cried, "Did we do wrong, darling?"

"No," said Manon, tremulously, her mouth working against her tears. "Pink wouldn't have been appropriate anyway. It was—we were going to have—the baby was a little boy." She swallowed hard. "We would have called him Owen, if he'd lived to be born. And he and Brook would have been playmates—and brothers—their whole lives through. But now it—won't—be."

"Oh, _darling_," said Cecilia, through the tears, going to wrap her arms around her friend.

But Manon turned away from Cecilia's touch. And she did not cry, herself. The sound of grief was evident in her voice, but for all that, her eyes remained pitifully dry.

_______________________

Joy took to coming over in the evenings when Manon was asleep. Her own face showed the strain of the last few weeks. There had never been any love lost between Joy and Manon, but for all their petty differences, Joy loved her brother's wife very much, and she was a sweet girl, and could not bear to see anyone, much less anyone she loved, in pain.

"She is trying to pretend nothing is wrong," Joy said, as the girls sat out on the porch to watch the stars come out. Cecilia held sleeping Brook, wrapped up in his blanket and a peaked red cap that made him look like a baby elf. How dear his face was, under it! He seemed to be smiling as he slept, as though he were having delicious little dreams. Inside the house, Nancy was washing the supper dishes and singing. Marshall had built a fire—with applewood sent over from Red Apple Farm—and had promptly fallen asleep beside it, Gog and Magog keeping watch over his slumber. The first of the pumpkins in Cecilia's vegetable garden had appeared that day, and she had arranged them, with a bowl of pobby green and gold gourds, by the door. The whole setting was so cosy and homey that Joy shivered, thinking of the cold, lonely Poet's house she had just left. Thinking, too, of her own dear white bungalow with the shutters with hearts cut into them, and her little girls asleep within those sentry walls.

"If she is pretending, then we must try to pretend, too," said Cecilia firmly. "We must treat her normally, Joy, and not condescend to her. We just have to remember that under that stringy hair and those dark-circled eyes, she's _still Manon_. We'll just have to think of that, and _not_ of the baby."

Cecilia put her own words into action the next day. She drove to town and bought a whole sheaf of fashion magazines, and a new lipstick she thought her friend might like. She passed a boutique and went in, and came out with a gay, paisley patterned bedjacket. It was garish and she herself would never dream of wearing it, but it reminded her of Manon of the old war days, with brooches pinned all over her nurse's uniform. She brought her bounty to the poet's house and Manon even smiled over the jacket. The next time she visited, Cecilia brought a bag of candy—the time after that a book of magic tricks that the old Manon would have laughed over for hours.

Lee sent her the next few chapters of his _A Time to Dance_, and Cecilia read them to Manon in the afternoons. The plot was picking up, and _Junie_ had run away to be married to _Julia's _beau, and the family was in uproar over it. It was some of Lee's best work—funny, piquant, and charming, but Cecilia could not really focus on it. She worried about Brook, though she knew he was in Nancy's capable hands, and she longed for her baby. She did not like being away from him so long when he was so small and new. He should be sleeping now but supposed he woke, and wanted his Mummy? And she would not be there for him.

As if Manon could hear her thoughts, she asked, suddenly, interrupting Cecilia's reading,

"Why do you never bring the baby over, when you come?"

Poor Cecilia looked up from her page miserably. Truth be told, she had asked herself the same thing. If they were supposed to be treating Manon as nothing had happened, why shouldn't she bring her son to see his 'auntie?' She was ashamed of herself, at once.

"What made you think of him?" she asked, stalling for time to compose her reply.

"Everything makes me think of babies—not just your baby," Manon said, fixing her blue eyes straight on Cecilia's. "Everything about the way you look makes me think of him. The way your mouth tilts up at the corners—not a smile, exactly, but only just. The furrows under your eyes from getting up with him in the night. You—you smell like him—all sweet and milky and powdery. _Why_ don't you bring him?"

"I suppose," Cecilia said, "I thought it would—would hurt you to see him. I don't want to hurt you, Manon."

"I know you don't," said Manon, bitterly. "But you hurt me all the same, just by being happy. I am a small person, Cecilia—I _hate_ your happiness. It is like a slap to me. You have your baby—and I don't have mine—and why? What did I do that was so wrong—wrong enough to lose him? You are a 'working mother'—you worked out until almost the very end—you didn't care that it might harm your child. I stayed home and I was gentle with myself and my little son died. What," her eyes blazed, "Is the fairness in _that_? I did everything right—I _did_—I read all the books and ate all the right things. Cod liver's oil! Nasty stuff! I _choked _it down—four teaspoonfuls a day. You went on long walks every day and climbed trees—yes, I saw you and Marshall in the branches of that old maple, hanging like monkeys, without a thought that you might fall and lose everything. I was careful, and you were not. You have lived a charmed life. You were loved from the beginning. I was hated and neglected. And now you are _still_ charmed and I am still cursed. You have your baby and mine is dead. How? Why? I cannot understand it—I cannot—I cannot!"

She flung the words so passionately that Cecilia cringed as if she'd thrown bricks. "It—it is God's will," she said weakly, a little frightened. She had never been spoken to so harshly before in her life. "Your baby—was so sweet to Him, Manon—God wanted him with Him right away."

"Shut—UP!" Manon cried. "You are the third person to say that to me! 'My baby was so sweet'—they wouldn't even let me see him. They wouldn't let anybody see him. So how does everybody _know_? Maybe he wasn't sweeter than other babies. And your baby is 'sweet'—and _alive_. Oh, I hate you, Cecilia Blythe—I hate you—I hate you! I wish you'd leave me alone. The very sight of you sickens me."

Tears were dripping down Cecilia's face and off of her little pointed chin, onto the floor. Her best friend—the best friend of her womanhood—hated her? Ten long years of friendship, of kindredship—and now this? Blythe had appeared in the doorway, at the sound of the raised voices, and he stood, hovering, unsure of which woman to go to to comfort first. He stepped around Cecilia, finally, to the bed, and put his arms around his wife. But his gray eyes burned with sympathy into his cousin's, and Cecilia understood that this was not the first of Manon's rages he had seen since she had come home. But it did not make it any easier for her, knowing that it must have happened before.

"Manon," she gasped, between sobs that were shaking her. "You—don't—wish_ my_ little baby was—dead? You—can't—wish it. You can't—mean—_that_."

Manon softened—an inch. No more.

"I don't wish that," she said, coldly. "I am not quite that bad. But I don't want to see you, Cecilia. Go home."

Cecilia crossed to the bed and tried to lay her hands on her friend's hair. Manon shied away again, burying her face in Blythe's chest. _Forgive her_, his eyes begged. _She knows not what she does._

Cecilia took a deep breath to steady herself. "When I come tomorrow, I'll bring you the new _Canadian Woman_. One of Lee's stories appeared in it this month. It's darling, and you will love it."

"I don't want you to come tomorrow," Manon said without raising her head, her voice muffled.

"The day after that, then," said Cecilia firmly.

Blythe was the one who spoke.

"Cee," he said haltingly, his gray eyes tortured. "I think—Manon means—that you shouldn't come to visit her—anymore. At least until she is—better. It is too painful now."

Cecilia left the room, feeling numb. She went downstairs in a fog of sorrow. Joy met her at the front door.

"Cecilia, I heard _everything_," she whispered. "Oh, how beastly, even if she is hurting. Darling, I can't _believe_ she would talk to you that way, when you've been so _good _to her…"

Cecilia pulled away from Joy's arms. She did not want her cousin right now. She only wanted Manon—dear, sweet, happy Manon. They had always had such a sweet, beautiful friendship, and their friendship had survived so much. Their initial differences—the long stressful years of the war—Blythe's 'defection.' All for—nothing. Manon _hated_ her, now. It was all for naught.

Cecilia thought of the two happy, pretty young girls, who had worked and dreamed and laughed and cried together and felt her heart was breaking. She had lost her friend—her sweet friend.

She went home. Marshall saw her tear-blinded face and he leapt up to enfold her in his arms. He did not need to be told what had happened. He had known it was coming. There had always been a little crack in Cecilia's friendship with Manon—a person who had not known happiness or love in her younger years would always be a little separate from a person who had. But now the crack was a gulf, as deep and wide as the ocean. Marshall kissed his wife's shining black head and let her cry. When she had finished he kissed her cheeks and dried them with his shirtsleeves. Then he led her upstairs and settled her in bed. He brought Brook from his cradle and nestled him in his mother's arms, and lay down next to them. Cecilia felt warm and surrounded by the love and peace of her own little family. The sting of Manon's words was softened and Cecilia was able to think that life was at least a little lovely, again. She fell asleep with the baby in her arms, and Marshall's head on her shoulder.

When she woke again it was dark. Marshall had taken the baby away and gone downstairs to eat the supper Nancy had laid out for him. Cecilia got up from bed and went to the window and looked out. The river was like a black satin ribbon against the sky. The stars were heavy and low-down to the earth. In the garden, the wind tossed the last of the roses on the white rosebush—white roses for 'love dead or forsaken,' she had heard Grandmother say, once. Well—it didn't necessarily mean romantic love—it could apply to any sort of love between two people. It could apply to her and Manon's love for each other. Before, Manon had been a pink rose—'love hopeful and expectant.' Now she was white and loveless toward her old chum. A little of the bitterness of before rose up again in Cecilia's heart as she looked down at the sleeping world. Yes—it was very lovely—but without her friend it could never be lovely again in quite the same way.


	17. Old Haunts

Baby Brook was two months old in October, and to celebrate, Cecilia and Marshall took him for his first visit to Red Apple Farm. How like a little elf he looked, in the red cap and sweater Una had knitted him! And how glad Cecilia was that his first visit to his ancestral home should coincide with the autumn.

"Fall is the nicest time of the year at Red Apple Farm," she told her baby as they walked through the drifts of fallen leaves toward the cheerful farmhouse. Romy had been carving jack-o-lanterns and their leering, sneering faces covered the porch rail. Mary Vance and Grandmother Blythe had come up to be there when the Douglases arrived, and their greeting was joyous and heartfelt. "I'll keep the baby while you young people go out and wander," said Mary, covetously and rapturously, but Cecilia laughed, and kept her hold of Brook.

"Nonsense!" she said. "We're taking him wandering with us. I'm going to introduce him to all our special places."

"But he won't remember it," pointed out Shirley, practically. "He's too young."

"But the memory will linger there, somewhere inside him." Cecilia was certain. "And _I'll_ remember it, and Marshall, too, and we'll tell him all about it, one day, and he'll be glad to know. Oh, don't look askance at me, Mother! I haven't raised three babies like you, but I do know when my little man is warm and snug enough."

"I trust you, darling," said Una, a little doubtfully. Dr. Cecilia Blythe might be respected as wise and efficient by the citizen of Bright River, but here at Red Apple Farm she was, and always would be, Una's little girl.

Marshall and Cecilia had a glad day with their baby, revisiting old haunts, steeped in the glamour and sweetness of their own childhoods—their youths—their courting days. They walked all the way to Rainbow Valley and sat under the Tree Lovers and watched Brookie's brown eyes studying the pattern of the leaves against the crisp blue sky. At Ingleside he was cooed over by Aunt Faith, and Uncle Jem, who nearly fell over themselves thanking Cecilia for her kindnesses to Nancy.

"She sounds so much better in her letters," Faith said, with tearful eyes. "I'm so grateful to you, Cecilia, I really am. There is so much of your mother in you—you're good at taking care of people. Una always has been that way, from the very first. People think you got your talent at doctoring from your father's family, but there is something of the Meredith in you that's responsible for it, too."

"I don't doubt it," said Cecilia honestly. "And don't thank me, Aunt Faith. I'm not going to lay down the law and tell you you _can't_—I hate it when people tell me I'm not allowed to thank them. It takes the fun out of things—but I will _ask_ you not to. Nancy has saved me these past few months, and is more and more of a friend to me every day."

"And a mighty good cook," said Marshall seriously, patting his trim waist.

They walked through the town under the pretense of showing Blythe the flagship Douglas's Store, but really they were showing their baby off to the townspeople that had surrounded them in their young days. There were some who said that Cecilia Blythe and Marshall Douglas were a queer match; those who were fond of the Blythes said that Cecilia might have done better than Mary Douglas's boy, and those who were not said Marshall _had _been taken by that proud little chit of a Shirley's daughter. Well, here was evidence that they were not so queer, after all, and anyway, there were plenty of people in-between who simply wished them well and wanted to share a little in their happiness.

When they cut back through the Valley, Marshall stopped, and withdrew a key on a chain from his pocket. "I want to check Westview," he said, gesturing to the gray house at the top of the hill. "It's mine since Uncle Norman died last year, and I'd like to make sure it's in good order. No leaks, things like that. I've always been fond of this house. I used to tear off here when I was a lad and scared I'd crossed Ma. Aunt Ellen always had a place for me, and Uncle Norman, I believe, considered me quite his own. We never knew Ma or Dad's parents, and I believe Uncle Norman and I appropriated each other as grandchild and –parent."

"It is a nice house," said Cecilia absently, noting the tall poplars in the lane, the wide porch. Such a view—you could see all the way down the long, wooded hill to Ingleside, and across the level patchwork fields to Four Winds, hazy in the distance, all in one glance. It was the dearest spot in the whole district, Cecilia thought, standing there at that moment—save Red Apple and Ingleside, of course.

Marshall unlocked the door and they went through the place. All the furniture was shrouded with cloths, but the mahogany grand piano was uncovered and gleaming, in front of the wall of windows with the clever seamless double doors that opened into the fir wood that extended down the hill toward the sea-cliffs. It was certainly an airy place, with lots of wind that whistled cheerfully through the chinks. No wonder Grandpa Meredith always woke up when he was courting Grandma Rosemary here.

"Tell me again how Norman Douglas ended up coming here to live after he married Aunt Ellen," Cecilia said to Marshall in a whisper—she felt she ought to whisper in that hushed place. She knew the story, of course, but she wanted to hear it over again, and Marshall did not disappoint in the telling. After their nuptials, Aunt Ellen had sworn that she would never leave Westview, but Uncle Norman had been just as firm with regards to his bachelor's cottage. There had been a terrible storm, just at the crucial point in their argument—and Norman's little cottage had been hit by lightning and burned to the ground. Norman had been livid with God, and Ellen, who had prayed dangerously that something like this would happen, was almost afraid, and staunchly policed her prayers after that.

"It's a pity they never had any children," said Cecilia, with a sigh. Something about this house cried out for small voices, and pitter-pattering feet. The house had an almost-lonely air—as if it were waiting for life to come back to it, and was beginning to give up hope that it would.

They went through the parlor—somehow it _was_ a parlor, and not a living room, with the French windows and floor-to-ceiling bookcases—and into the kitchen, which was spacious and neat even after a year of lying unused. There was a scrubbed pine table, and Cecilia had for an instant an idea of many little boys and girls sitting round it, elbowing each other playfully and giggling. It made her smile herself, that picture, as she climbed the steps, up to the second floor, running her hand over the carved wooden banister.

Upstairs Westview featured five bedrooms, and an old-fashioned servants' quarters. "Nice for a family," Cecilia said, noting the fireplace in each. You wouldn't have to deal with a boiler in a house like this.

"We should think of putting it on the market," she said wistfully. "This house could be someone's house of dreams, instead of sitting here, vacant."

Marshall's green eyes grew watchful as he regarded his wife. He had an idea for this house that did not involve selling it—but he saw she was not ready, yet, to talk of leaving the place where the brook and river met. They closed Westview and went back down the hill, and home by the shore road. Cecilia remembered, as she walked, that she had often driven down this road on her way to Silver Bush, to see Sid Gardiner. She wondered how Sid was doing. Perhaps he and May had a baby of their own, by now. Maybe they were happy—she hoped they were, though it seemed unlikely. Funny that she should want Sid to be happy when he had treated her so badly! She supposed that motherhood must have made her wise.

The orchard at Red Apple Farm was dappled with shadow, the fruit hanging heavy in the trees. They would have a bumper crop that year, and Cecilia wished that baby Brook had teeth so that he might sample one of the famous Blythe apples. Marshall spread his coat under the trees in the oldest part of the orchard—very near to where he and Cecilia had been married, only a year ago, now. Cecilia lay the baby down and laid herself down next to him. Marshall stretched out on the grass, one arm behind his curly black head; his other hand toying absently with his wife's pretty dark locks.

"I had a dream of this, once, in France," he said, after a while, and Cecilia's ear pricked up, because Marshall almost never talked about those war years, not even with her. She had seen it in most of the men of her acquaintance who had been overseas. Walt and Gilly and Blythe, even Blythe, all persisted in acting as if those years had never happened. She turned on her side to face Marshall, the baby dozing between them.

"What did you dream?"

"It was at the Scheldt in '45," Marshall said, slowly. "We'd been fighting hand to hand, almost, with the Jerries there. Nasty business—their shells raining down from miles away and killing as many as their fellows as of ours. I remember one falling close by—not on top of me, but near enough—and I remember flying through the air, and then a great darkness. When I opened my eyes I was lying on my back, under a stand of trees. I watched them for a while, as I got my breath, and then I looked over—and there you were, beside me, same as you are now, Cee. For a moment we just locked our eyes—so—and the sounds of battle seemed very far away indeed. And then I reached out for you—and you were gone. I knew it couldn't have been a dream from the past—your hair was longer, as it is now, and you had those few grey threads, and those little laugh lines were just starting to come out around your eyes. Don't hit at me, woman—they _suit_ you. They make me think I've done something to put them there. I thought, when it happened, that it must just be the hopes and imaginings of an addled mind—but now I see it was presentiment of this moment. You were engaged to Blythe and I was beside myself, but I always trusted in that picture—believed it would happen. Well, what do you think of that, Cecilia-mine? It's no Piper, I'll admit—but it isn't bad for a prosy person, all the same."

"I think it's lovely," Cecilia said, with tears in her eyes. She was thinking about how close she had come to losing Marshall forever. She leaned over to kiss him, and when she looked up, she was laughing. It was the power Marshall had over people: he always left them laughing. He always banished tears.

They spent a nice long while in the orchard, their favorite sweethearting spot, even now that they were not exactly supposed to be acting like sweethearts anymore. Finally, they got up, and wended their way back to the house. Una and Mary were getting them up a supper that would have fed the entire Canadian army, and Romy was ringing the dinner bell on the back porch. Its sound pealed on the wind, like bright laughter. After supper they would sit by an apple-wood fire and sing those old songs, the ones that Cecilia was storing up in her memory to teach to Brook. Those songs that had been carried over the ocean by the Blythes and Merediths and Douglases—_come o'er the stream Charlie, dear Charlie, brave Charlie_, and _the wild mountain thyme and purple bloomin' heather _and _will ye no' come back again? _Romy had written a play for them and would act it out, with Shirley playing the part of the villain. They must remember not to laugh. She must sit very close to Marshall and pinch him if he looked like he was going to. It was a tragic drama, Romy had advised them, and she had confided that she expected people to cry in certain parts. Well, likely they _would_ cry—one way or the other!

They lingered by the low stone wall that ran around the orchard, for old times' sake. Marshall was holding his son, now, and he looked down into Brook's face with a grin.

"This wall is very important in your history," he told the baby, who was peering about with interested eyes, as if he understood. "It was right here that I took your little mother in my arms and kissed her for the first time. I felt a man for the first time in my life that day. Little laddie, I'm going to give you a good piece of advice: if you want to feel ten feet tall, find a way to show the girl you love how you feel about her. You won't regret it—I haven't yet, and never will."

"Oh, stop!" said Cecilia, laughing, but with a real sense of consternation in her heart. "I don't like you talking about Brook growing up and falling in love!"

"But Cee—surely you want him to fall in love, one day?"

"Yes—but not for a long while. He is only my baby yet—and I don't want to think about the day I'll lose him to some other woman. Right now Mother is the only lady in your life, isn't she, dear wee ickles?"

It was such a foolish little fear but Marshall smiled, for he felt the same way. He was in no hurry to have Brook grow up before his time. These last two months had been the sweetest in his life. He wanted to savor them, to make them last, forever and ever and ever. He leaned down and kissed his wife, in this place where he had kissed her first. And at that moment, the dreams of the boy he had been came full circle.

"We're so lucky," Cecilia thought, as they walked into the house. Then, for the first time all day, she thought of Manon and her heart turned over. Was it a sin to be so happy? She was sure it wasn't. But why—oh _why_—couldn't everyone be as happy as she was?


	18. Friends Far and Near

"Going to the Glen for Christmas?" wrote Leslie Meredith Hart to her cousin Cecilia in early December.

"No, indeed," wrote Cecilia back to Leslie in Virginia. "We want Brookie to have his first Christmas at home." And since Shirley and Una were taking Romy to Avonlea for the holiday, Cecilia reflected it would be a relatively quiet holiday, as compared with last year.

"Then I am coming to visit you and bringing the kids," wrote Leslie, and Cecilia grinned, as all notions of a quiet holiday flew from her mind. Wherever Leslie was was _not_ quiet. "Douglas is taking his mother to Paris, but I've _seen_ Paris—and I've never seen your 'umble 'ome. And I've never seen my little 'nephew'—and it's been ages since I've seen you. Oh, Cecilia, _do_ ask Marshall if we might come and write me directly of his answer. But I shall start packing right away, even before I get it—Marshall's always loved me, I know he'll say we can."

Cecilia smiled, thinking of Leslie, who had not been able to come to her wedding the year before, since she had been expecting a baby, herself. Leslie now had _three_ children, all under the age of five, and Cecilia was expecting that her glamorous cousin might, finally, have started to look a little matronly in the face of her new duties. But she was wrong. When they went to collect the Harts at the airport, Cecilia was greeted by a tall, slim woman in an impeccably tailored green tweed suit. A small gold hat with a jaunty feather was pulled down low over Leslie's burnished hair, which was cut and styled and curled according to the letter of the latest law. Her feet were encased in spindly forest-green high heels, and her little hands were gloved in pristine white. In short, Leslie looked as glamorous as ever, and Cecilia looked down, laughing, at her own dungarees and Wellington boots, over which she had donned one of Marshall's white oxford shirts. At that moment she gave up any idea of Leslie ever becoming matronly—such a thing _couldn't_ happen.

Leslie flung herself into Cecilia's arms. She was holding baby Petra, who was quite smooshed in their long embrace and began to wail, heartily, at her mistreatment. Leslie pulled away and joggled her while taking Cecilia in with her eyes.

"Oh! You're as pretty as ever, darling—I'd never have thought you'd had a baby only a few months ago. I'm so _fat—_" Leslie patted her neat waist as though it were of gigantic proportions, "But Doug likes me with a little meat on my bones. So this is Brook? Oh, what a _handsome_ man you are, wee one! Johanna, Duncan—come here, you imps, and meet your new cousin."

Cecilia marveled over the changes in the children since she'd seen them last. Jo was a big girl of almost-six, now, and Duncan an adorable boy of three. Petra was still fretting, great tears rolling out of her sea-blue eyes, and Leslie kissed her, and confided to Cecilia:

"She's been the baby for too long—she's getting fearfully spoiled. Good thing she'll have someone to give her a run for her money before too long."

"Leslie! _Another_ baby?"

"I know, I know," Leslie said, shaking her head, but beaming, nonetheless. "But I've got in the habit of having a kid every two years or so, Cecilia, and I find I can't break it, now. They're such fun, you see. You'll be like me, I can tell already. I see the way you're in love with your new man. By Christmas next year, he'll have a brother or sister, mark my words."

"Oh, stop!" Cecilia cried, laughing. But there was real consternation in her voice, too. "Brook's only five months old, Les—it seems disloyal to talk of supplanting him already. Besides, we'll probably only have one other, if we can manage it. I have my career to think of, you know."

"Mark my words," said Leslie cheerfully, "I'm right about this, and when it comes to pass I'll say 'I told you so.' Come along, Jo—and Duncan, _do_ stop crying. I've told you over and over again, Santa Claus _will_ come to see us in Bright River. I wired him myself and told him that's where we'd be. So quit your caterwauling—or I'll write and tell him _not_ to come, after all."

The little house was full to bursting on Christmas Day, so that not only did Cecilia have to put both leaves in the table, but set up another table entirely beside the first one, and cram chairs around it. There were four adults, including Nancy, two toddlers, and two babies, and on top of that, the Hyacinth House people came down, with Lee. And then, on top of that—adog! For that was Leslie's Christmas present to Marshall and Brook: an Airedale terrier puppy, which Marshall promptly named Juno, after the beachhead in Normandy. Cecilia reflected that the dog did not look so much like a _dog_ as a very small horse, and it galumphed around the house joyfully as Marshall teased it with a bit of the Christmas ham.

"Leslie!" Cecilia cried, overcome by helpless laughter as the dog jumped up on the table, knocking over the gravy boat and Miss Ada's water glass. "What were you _thinking_?"

"Every boy needs a dog," said Leslie complacently, as though Armageddon was not occurring two feet away from where she sat. "Brook's a boy—and Marshall's just a grown up boy, though he pretends to be a man. And you'll grow to love the dog in time."

"I don't know," Cecilia admitted. "I'm more of a cat person, actually."

"Well, I can get you a cat!" Leslie was eager to please. "I'll go get you one tomorrow—_two_ cats, if you want."

"Les_lie_! If you _dare_…!"

After a merry meal, Misses Ada and Lottie took the older children up to Hyacinth House to entertain them for the evening, and (Cecilia suspected) stuff them full of sugary things. Marshall romped with the dog for a while before the two of them collapsed onto the sofa together and fell asleep in a big, furry heap. Lee and Nancy bundled up against the soft snow that had started to fall in slanting lines against the blue-black sky. Cecilia and Leslie put little Petra and Brook to sleep in Brook's crib, and then settled down together in the kitchen to a good gab-fest. Cecilia hated to admit it, but she was lonely for a friend. She missed Manon so much—she wondered what kind of Christmas Manon and Blythe were having at the Poet's Cottage this year. Her heart turned over to think that it might be a sad, silent one. She missed the easy camaraderie that they had always shared. She missed Manon's sparkle, and she missed Blythe, too. So Leslie's shining presence was extra-welcome, this year.

They talked of their lives to one another, so that they each had a picture of what life was like for the other. Leslie, it appeared, had become a grand society lady in Virginia, and was highly sought after by the Washington political matrons and heiresses. But in Cecilia's kitchen, she was just the feisty little girl of the Montreal days, all over again. Slowly their conversation segued into _do-you-remembers_. Do you remember our Christmas with the Braschis in London? Cecilia did—and had had a card from _Signora_ Braschi just the other day. Well, do you remember my war-wedding, to Captain Hart—the tricks we used to play on Nurse Prowdy—our sleepovers, when we were kids? Cecilia giggled, thinking of the time Leslie had locked herself in an old trunk during a game of hide-and-seek, and promptly fallen asleep, while the grownups tore around the place looking for her, eventually calling the police to join the search. Do you remember the Judah-cat—our beach-summer with Uncle Bruce—all the girls and teachers at St. Agnes's?

"Do you remember Susan?" Cecilia asked.

"As if I could forget her," Leslie scoffed. "Susan is just as real to me as she ever was, Cecilia. Petra is called Petra Suzanne for her, you know—because she reminded me of Susan, when she was born. They have the same eyes, you know—and the same mouth, and smile."

"If you really want to see someone who looks like Susan, you should see Uncle Bruce and Aunt Penny's Iris," Cecilia said. "She is the very picture of Susan, except she has her father's black hair. She is coming to stay with me in January, you know—Uncle Bruce and Aunt Penny are going to have a second honeymoon. Oh, Leslie, I can't wait to see her—_dear_ Iris."

Iris came for the promised two weeks, and she was just as overjoyed to see Cecilia as Cecilia was to see her. And Marshall! He positively doted on the child—he always had, ever since her birth, nine years ago. Iris was a slight, small girl, prone to sweetness, with a touch of the fairy about her, and none of either of her parents' emphatic traits. She sat for hours in the garden, if the weather was fine, having tea parties with a host of unseen guests, whom, she explained, had come along with her from Halifax by stowing away in her trunks. There was Mr. Beast, who was terrible, but was in the process of reforming; Lady Zip, who always hid behind a veil and was very mysterious indeed; and Poe, a jolly round boy with no scruples and a penchant for Cecilia's maple cookies. Cecilia had returned home for work one afternoon to find Iris and Marshall seated around a mossy log in the back garden—Marshall stirring an imagined cup of tea as Iris recounted for him Poe's recent adventure on the mountains of the moon. Another time she came downstairs to behold Marshall rampaging through the house on all fours, with tiny Iris seated delicately on his back, looking very pleased with herself.

"He's my horse," she said, cracking an imaginary whip, "And he's an _awful_ bad horse, but I'm training him to be better."

"I do believe that child could get you to do anything," said Cecilia to Marshall, later. "She only has to tell you to jump and you'll say 'how high?'"

"I can't refuse her, Cee," Marshall said helplessly. "If I didn't know better I'd think the fairies left her for us to find. There's something otherworldly about her—and sweet. Say, Cee—can't you arrange it so that we have a little girl, next? I'd like one just like Iris—I'd like _ten_ just like her."

Romy came up for a week and she and Iris had enough fun for those ten girls. Cecilia smiled to see them together. Their friendship reminded her of hers and Leslie's of auld lang syne. How funny that both she had Susan had been so shy, but that Romy was the brasher of this two. Their favorite game to play was called The Princess and Her Slave. One would sit on the divan and bark orders at the other, who would run and grovel to fulfill her every wish. They took turns playing the princess, and the slave, until they realized that Marshall could be put on permanent slave duty, and then they were both princesses, sitting together on the divan as Marshall went and fetched them donuts and glasses of milk in gold-rimmed china cups from Cecilia's wedding set.

In the evenings they sat out and sang songs with Baby Brook, who cooed and gurgled at them. He had gotten to be such a nice, chubby baby, with deep dimples on either side of his mouth, and one in his chin for good measure, and a swirl of dark brown hair that came to a point on the top of his head, like a Kewpie doll. Both girls were quite wild for him, and Romy and Cecilia both agreed that once Brook could speak, he could call Iris 'Aunt Iris,' just like he would call Romy 'Aunt Romy,'—since Iris had no brothers and sisters to give her nieces and nephews of her own. Cecilia smiled as she held her baby close. She liked the idea of him having two, pretty, young girl-aunts, like benevolent fairy godmothers.

There was a great commotion the day that Marshall's television was delivered. Romy and Iris and Brook sat in a row in front of it as Marshall set it up—clapping their hands over Brook's ears when Marshall's frustrated grumblings got a little _too_ loud. Cecilia joined them, and they sat in stunned amazement as Marshall finally flicked the switch, and the screen came to life. At first there was only a hum, and a static like snow, but Marshall reached out and adjusted the antennae, and they saw a bunch of figures moving around—_Hockey Night_, out of Montreal! They popped corn in the fireplace and watched into the wee hours and then Cecilia and Marshall each carried one of the girls up to bed and tucked them in, and gloated at their little fair faces, side-by-side on the pillow.

The girls were not _exactly_ little girls anymore—they were fascinated by romance, as Cecilia remembered being at their age. They talked for hours of Cousin Nancy's romance with Lee—for it was obvious to them, if not to Nancy and Lee themselves, that they _were_ having a romance. In Romy and Iris's minds, the two were as good as married, and they had great fun naming all of that pair's future _twelve_ children. Only once did Cecilia have a dark moment in their visit, when Romy asked, quite casually, "Where is Cousin Manon?" but Marshall saved the situation by offering them a second helping of the fudge Cecilia had helped them mix up, from a Susan Baker recipe.

But all good things must come to an end, and at the end of the week, Uncle Bruce and Aunt Penny came to collect Iris and take her back to Halifax. The cousins bore the parting well, but after Iris had gone, Cecilia found Romy seated Turk-style on the floor of the pantry, crying her eyes out. Cecilia sat down with her, and put her arms around her.

"There there, little bird," she said, comfortingly. "You'll see your Iris-girl again soon. There's spring break to look forward to, and Uncle Bruce is going to take you both to the beach this summer for a week. That's not so far off."

"I'm not crying because Iris is gone," Romy sobbed. "I'm crying 'cause one day I'll _have_ to get married—and then I'll have to love my fella more than I love dear Iris or else he'll get mad and throw me over."

Cecilia hid her face in Romy's hair, so that her sister could not see how close she was to laughing at her very real distress. Romy's tears took their natural course—she cried and cried, until they tapered off, and she brightened all at once.

"But maybe I'll never get married after all," she said, in a more cheerful voice. "Maybe me and Iris will be old maids, like old Aunt Cordy was for so long, down in Avonlea. I wonder how she managed it? I'm going to ask her."

"Romy! If you _do_…!"

"Well, how else will I find out?" asked Romy—quite sensibly, she thought.


	19. Lost, but Found

In February, Lee Goddard told Cecilia he had finished his novel.

"Will you read it, Cecilia?" he asked her, a little anxiously. "And for heavens' sake, if it isn't any good, won't you tell me right off? I hate it when people try to pander to my feelings: I want to know if it is a failure before I make a fool of myself by sending it off places."

"I'll be perfectly honest," Cecilia promised, and she spent the rest of that day curled up by the fire, reading. Several times she had to lay the manuscript pages down in incredulity—how could Lee have thought that this book was no good? Why—his characters lived—she could see the _Fairchild_ family, as if she were among them: the grizzled doctor, who kept losing his wives to some ailment or another, and married again and again in the hopes of getting a son, at last; his twelve beautiful daughters, one for each month of the year, who laughed and fought and sang and _danced_. She laughed over Nova and Dessa's cutting asides—she thrilled with _Olivia_ at the pangs of first love—she cried over sweet May's death, and again, at the end, happily, when Dr. Fairchild finally got his long-awaited son. Oh, it was almost a misnomer to call it fiction—because surely these vivid creatures lived _somewhere_. By the time Cecilia laid down the final page of _A Time to Dance _she knew that it would be a success, and that the name of Lee Goddard would be painted up on the annals of Canadian literature.

"Let me send a copy to Grandmother," she pleaded. "She'll love it, I know. She was saying just the other day that she wanted a book with a hint of _joy_ in it—she thinks writers are getting terribly grim and dour these days."

"Of course you may send it to her," said Lee, nicely. "I would appreciate her opinion before I start sending it to publishers."

Anne Blythe wrote back in such glowing terms that Lee could no longer wonder at the success of his venture. He typed up a fresh copy of the MS and sent it away the very day her letter came. Cecilia tried to prepare him for the possibility of its being sent back—despite the book's charm, she knew there would be some editors thought it too fanciful for publication. But she needn't have bothered—within a month came a reply from Bourke and Leaton, in Toronto. They were very pleased to accept _A Time to Dance_, and planned for it to be the centerpiece of their fall list; they were even talking of the possibility of optioning the film rights for Hollywood. Mr. Leaton himself wrote and said that Deanna Durbin was eager to take the part of Olivia on the big screen.

"We _must_ celebrate," said Cecilia, firmly, and set about planning a congratulatory feast for her friend. She planned the guest list, inviting Misses Ada and Lottie, of course; and Blythe and Manon, even though she knew they would not accept. And they didn't—but Grandmother Blythe planned to make the trip all the way from the Glen in Lee's honor. And Lee had asked especially if he might invite his own mother.

"Of course!" Cecilia told him. "The more the merrier!"

The party was set for the first Saturday in March. On the appointed day, at the appointed hour, the guests arrived. Cecilia hugged her grandmother, wondering how it was that she could be nearly ninety years old and still so graceful, and beautiful, and then turned to introduce her to Lee's mother, a sonsy woman with a pug nose and a shock of hair so splendidly red that it almost hurt to look at her. Anne Blythe smiled, and shook Mrs. Goddard's hand.

"Your hair is very _nearly_ the exact same shade mine was when I was a girl, Mrs. Goddard," she said. "I was an orphan—and I thought to be saddled with red hair was a pain beyond bearing, on top of that. Well, I've been white these ten years, and it's a marvel how much I miss it. But then, you never appreciate what you have until it's gone, I've heard."

"Do call me Leona," said Lee's mother. "And I don't mind my red hair—never have. It's a tradition in my family—my father had it—and all his brothers, too."

"There is something very familiar about you," said Anne, with a closer look. "Something about the eyes—Leona, are you sure we have never met before? I hate to admit my mind is starting to go, but perhaps it _is_."

"If it is, mine is, too," said Leona Goddard. "For I thought the same thing about you. But I chalked it up to us both being a friend of the trees."

"A friend of the trees!" marveled Anne, laughing. "That sounds very much like what _we_ Blythes call 'the race that knows Joseph.' Oh, Leona, we _are_ going to be good friends, aren't we? Nancy-girl! Come and give me a kiss, little namesake—and _look _at the pink in those cheeks of yours!"

Leona was shaking Marshall's hand, and telling him that she was happy to meet _the_ Douglas of Douglas's Grocery. "My friends will never believe this, when I tell them. We do all of our shopping at Douglas's—we wouldn't go anywhere else. Oh, it really is extraordinary!"

But it was not, by far, the most extraordinary thing to happen that day. They had a long, happy meal, and after Cecilia and Nancy had cleared the plates, Marshall opened a bottle of apple cider for a toast. _Not_ champagne—nobody said anything about it then, but Cecilia and Marshall exchanged a long glance full of hints and expectations that would have made Leslie shoot Cecilia a smug smile. Marshall lifted his glass. "To our friend Lee, and _A Time to Dance, _his great Canadian novel!"

"Hear, hear!" they echoed, and clinked their glasses. Cecilia turned to Lee's mother, who was beaming with pride. "Mrs. Goddard, did you ever expect when Lee was a boy that he would grow up to be a famous author one day?"

"I thought he could do anything he set his mind to," Mrs. Goddard confessed, her eyes behind her round spectacles crinkling up. "But I did have a lingering hope he'd become a minister. Oh, Shirley, Shirley, I suppose I will have to settle for famous author, in the end!"

"Shirley," said Anne, with a funny look. She turned to Lee. "I did not know that was your name."

"Yes," he admitted, with an apologetic glance and Miss Ada and Miss Charlotte. "I never use it, though. I took 'Lee' as a nickname when I started school. The boys would tease me, you see, for having a 'girl's name.'"

"But I always think of it as a boy's name—I have a son named Shirley John."

"How interesting!" said Mrs. Goddard. "It isn't a name you come across very often. I chose it because it was my maiden name—I was Leona Shirley before I met Mr. Goddard."

A little hush fell over the table. Cecilia looked at Marshall, who looked at Nancy, and then they all turned to see a strange look come into Anne Blythe's eyes.

"I chose it for the same reason," she said slowly. "I was Anne Shirley, before I was Anne Blythe."

The two women stared at each other, and Cecilia thought you really _could_ see the wheels turning as they took in each others' hair, and eyes, and pointed chins.

"Mrs. Blythe," said Leona, "You mentioned you were an orphan—do you happen to know what your parents were called? I had an uncle who died young—of typhoid—do you know where you were born?"

"I was born in Bolingbroke, Nova Scotia." Cecilia was surprised to see her grandmother's eyes well with sudden tears. "My parents died when I was just a few months old. Of typhoid fever—as you said your uncle…? My mother was called Bertha Willis—and my father was—"

"Walter Shirley," said Mrs. Goddard certainly. "My uncle Walter. I had a brother called Walter, for him. He was older than my father, your father was. And pa just worshipped him—was devastated when he died. My pa—Archibald—was only fourteen when his brother Walter died. His own folks had died a year before and he was sent to live with church folks out west. He knew he'd had a little niece—_you_—and when he came back East, he tried to find out where you'd gone. But nobody knew—and he supposed you'd died."

"I didn't," said Anne, and tears began to stream down her cheeks. She reached over and covered Leona's hand with her own, which was shaking. "I'm sorry," she said, and laughed. "It's just that I felt so alone in the world for so many years—and now to find, at age ninety, that I have a _family_…"

"Not just any family," said Leona, who was crying happily herself. "We're cousins, Anne. _First _cousins! Why, I should have noticed right away and how I didn't is beyond me. You have the Shirley eyes, exactly—and the Willis nose. Your ma had the same nose."

"My mother—but how do you…?"

"Oh, there's a portrait of her hanging on the wall in our home—a wedding portrait. Your father is in it, too."

"My _mother_," Anne said, her hand at her still-white throat. "Oh, Leona, Leona—_there is a picture of my mother_? _And _my father? I thought a sheaf of letters and a house in Bolingbroke was something but it is nothing compared to this. Oh, please—tell me how they look, please do."

"Well," said Leona, "Your father looks—well, he looks almost exactly like Lee here." She smiled at her son, and Anne turned her gray eyes, which were sparkling like lodestars of morning, onto her young first cousin once-removed, drinking him, anew. "Your mother—Bertha—is very pale and tall, with light eyes, and masses of black hair, long and straight."

"Like Walter—my son Walter," laughed Anne, with fresh tears in her eyes. "We always called him a hop-out-of-kin, but he wasn't—he looked like _my mother_. Leona—I know my parents met teaching school—but do you know anything about my mother's life before that?"

"I do. Elsa Willis—Bertha's sister—was a friend of my mother's, growing up, and now she is my friend, and has been these thirty years."

"_Is_ your friend—now? Do you mean to tell me my mother's sister is still living?"

"Yes—her sister by her father's second marriage. She is ninety-seven—she was nine years old when your ma died. The Willises were a big family, in those days—very rich—and the Shirleys were poor. It was quite the scandal when your ma and pa ran away and got married, and the Willises cut poor Bertha out, which is why they didn't take you when she died. Because they hadn't been speaking, they didn't know of her death, and by the time they found out, you were gone, and nobody knew where to look for you. Elsie never forgave them for that, I think. She'll be so glad to see you, Anne. You'll come to visit me in Daviston—a little town outside of Bolingbroke, where we live—and you'll meet her. She has some things that belonged to your ma, a portrait done when she was a girl, and lots of her dresses and hats, and some journals, too. Oh, Anne, Anne—_cousin_ Anne, don't cry!"

For Anne had put her head down into her hands and her shoulders were shaking. Nancy and Cecilia got up and went to her, and put their arms around her. When Grandmother lifted her face, she was shining, positively shining.

"You see, I was an orphan for so long," she explained, and Cecilia saw, for a moment, how her grandmother must have looked, waiting in the Bright River Station eighty years before, young and expectant and full of hope. "But now I find I'm not anymore, and it is a little bit of an adjustment. It is going to take a little time, I think, for it to sink in. I once was lost—but now I'm _found_. I must go and ring up Jem—and Nan—and Di—and Rilla, and tell them this spectacular news!"

"Isn't it incredible?" asked Cecilia of Marshall later, when they were snuggled up in bed. Brook was sleeping in her arms, and Nancy had gone to bed, and Grandmother had gone up to Hyacinth House with Leona, to sit and talk all night. "Why, that means that Lee and I are—second cousins, once removed. Oh, _think_ of all the things that had to go exactly right for this amazing thing to happen as it did, today! The burglaries that made Miss Ada and Miss Lottie take Lee in—his writing his book—it being accepted—us throwing this party. It's too coincidental to have happened randomly. It is enough to make anybody believe in God."

"I've never had a problem with that," said Marshall, twining his fingers through Cecilia's dark curls.

"Oh? Not at all?"

"Not at all—for I often think of all the things that had to go exactly right for _me_ to get to be with _you_."

______________________

A/N: I know that Busy Nothings has Anne meet up with her mother's family in her wonderful story, _Through These Trying Times_, and I hope she won't mind me doing a little of the same, here. I've always wanted Anne to find some family, even if it happens late in her life. I hope our situations are different enough for it to be two separate takes on the same idea and not me piggybacking on her story!

Thanks for the reviews! –Ruby.


	20. A Day of Beginnings

Cecilia and Nancy accompanied their grandmother on her pilgrimage to Daviston, Nova Scotia—her 'homecoming,' she had taken to calling it. Anne wanted to bring those two out of all her grandchildren because of the role they had played in helping to find her family—and because, though she wouldn't admit it, Cecilia knew she was nervous.

"They've been thinking of me as a baby for so many years," Anne said, with a wry smile, as though she knew she were being a _little_ silly. "And they're getting a wizened old crone."

"Grandmother!" cried Nancy. "Don't _say_ that—as if anybody could ever think of you that way!"

"I'm pretty pleased with you the way you are," said Lee, from his place in the backseat, next to Nancy. "And I'm one of 'them,' you know—_cousin_ Anne."

"Still," said Anne, twisting her handkerchief in her hands. When they mounted the steps to ring the Goddards' bell, she actually trembled a little. "I feel exactly as I felt climbing the steps to Green Gables for the first time. Wondering if _it, _finally, was to be my home—or if it was too good to be true."

She needn't have worried. Leona Goddard greeted her so warmly, as did all of her family, which was very large. She had a lot of children—Lee had a lot of brothers and sisters. They _all_ were red-headed—Lee's older brother Walter was almost the picture of Uncle Jem Blythe, and when Anne shook hands with Louisa Goddard, she gasped at the woman's milky white skin, and ruddy hair.

"You look—very much—like I've always imagined someone I lost a long time ago would look, if she were your age."

"Oh, so _you_ have an imagination, too?" asked Louisa. "I am so glad to hear it—it is an inherited trait, you know, Cousin Anne. And do you know that my middle name is Anne—Louisa Anne—after _you_? And that I've called my little daughter Anna, for the same reason?"

"I'm honored," Anne said, scooping up little Anna into her arms.

"Now tell me," said Louisa, "If that girl you've brought, talking to my sister Thekla, is _really_ the Nancy that Lee writes about in all of his letters home? She's a peach of a girl—I was afraid she'd be one of these beautiful heartbreakers—but she is only beautiful, and I'm glad to find her so."

They had tea, and after that, Leona took them all into the parlour where she had a stack of pictures waiting for Anne to look over. Her parents wedding picture—Anne gasped again when she saw her mother's eyes, which were a silvery gray even in the black-and-white. There were some other sepia-toned pictures, and an old oil-painting of Walter Shirley as a boy, and Leona was right—he did look like Lee. Cecilia watched as her grandmother took in every detail of his face with hungry eyes. Leona handed her an old daguerreotype of a baby, in a lacy dress, propped against a pile of fringed pillows. "That, my dear—is _you_."

"Me!" cried Anne, laughing. "Oh, look at those eyes—they're half my face. Cecilia, doesn't she look like your little Brook?"

"_She_ looks like you," Cecilia laughed. "And for very good reason, Grandmother."

"Oh, I can't reconcile those little baby cheeks with the withered face I see in my glass every morning!"

There was other pictures of extended family, and as Leona handed them over, all the Goddards jumped in to try and fill in missing details, so that the still inhabitants of those sepia frames moved and breathed and _lived_ again.

"That's your Uncle Archibald—my father. He was a bristly sort of man—but under that, a sweetheart. And this is your aunt Cordelia—"

"Cor_delia_!"

"—who died of consumption when she was only thirty years old. She was much younger than her brother Walter—twenty years and more. Your grandmother, Emily, had her at forty-three. It seems we Shirleys like to have our children late in life."

"All these names! Remind for me again how the family tree goes…?"

It was Louisa who spoke up—she knew her history as well as anybody. "George Shirley and his wife had Samuel, who married Emily, who had Walter and Archibald, who had you and mother."

"George, Samuel, Emily…" said Anne, tasting the names on her lips. "And Cordelia—a real, live Cordelia, who was my aunt."

"This here is a sketch of Great-Grandfather and Great-Granny Shirley," said Leona, handing it over. "George and his wife. They came out from England in 1809. You can't see it, of course, because it's not in color, and she's eighty in the picture—but Great-Granny was the first of our redheads. And she was the first Anne, too—you're likely named for her, cousin Anne. Walter, your father, was her especial favorite, for he looked like her brother, Noah, who died as a boy, she always said."

"Oh, I shan't be unhappy at 'Anne,' any longer," said Cecilia's grandmother with tears in her eyes. "She looks like a lady with some pluck."

"She had it in spades. When the family fell on hard times in the '30s, she 'went out' to work—years and years before women were doing such a thing. She did piecework right here, in this parlour—and raised nine children, to boot. When the duchess of Windsor visited Nova Scotia, it's rumored that she rent her coat, somehow or another—and Grandmother Shirley was the one to mend it. So you needn't think there is no distinction among your Shirley relatives," Lee laughed. "No matter what Elsie Willis tells you."

They met Elsie Willis that afternoon. She was a childless woman of ninety-seven years, who still lived in the ancestral seat of the Willises in Canada—a grand, imposing place. As they stood in the parlour Anne whispered to Cecilia, "I _can't_ be from any place so gloomy and grand as this! Oh, Cecilia, I know instinctually my mother must have hated it—that is why she was so quick to run off with my father."

But as cold and draughty as the place was, there was one ray of sunshine in it, in the form of Anne's Aunt Elsie. She was a tiny little lady with silver hair, and Anne's own gray-green eyes. She came into the parlor of her own accord, still lithe and spry despite her years. She crossed the hallway to Anne, and without a word, went to her, and took her face in her hands.

"Bertha!" she cried. "Bertha—Bertha's daughter! Walter's hair and mouth—but Bertha's nose, and eyes. And they say you're called Anne, after one of the Shirleys!"

"I am, Aunt Elsie," laughed Anne. "It feels strange to call you that—I never dreamed of having an aunt—and also because we are more contemporaries than we are aunt and niece."

"Everyone is your contemporary when you are nearly one-hundred years old," said Elsie, sitting down and motioning for them to sit, too. "Sit, sit—and I'll ring for Gertie to bring the tea. Well, you get your longevity from the Willises. My mother would have lived to be one-hundred if she hadn't died of a broken heart—when she lost Bertha. And these are your granddaughters? I never had any myself so I might need to borrow them from you, from time to time. Nancy is your name?—you're Shirley to the bone—and Cecilia? _You _have the Willis look about you, with that dark hair, and that nose. You remind me of my mother. Alicia was her name—there's a portrait of her there, over the fireplace. She was what we call 'true' Willis—she was Alicia Willis _nee_ Willis. She is your great-great grandmother—and that handsome devil next to her is your great-great grandfather, Martin Willis. Shall we exchange pictures, now, little Anne—Bertha's Anne? I have a stack of your mother's diaries—and who is this? Your son, Walter? Why, he's Willis to the bone!"

"I know that now," smiled Anne. "I always wondered, when he was alive, who he'd gotten his looks from. And this one is Miss Marilla Cuthbert, who adopted me at age eleven from Hopetown Asylum. She is standing in front of Green Gables, which was my home for many years."

Elsie held the picture of Anne's 'mother,' and surprised them all by beginning to cry.

"I'm sorry," she said, wiping her eyes. "It's just that when I think of you, Bertha's girl, in an asylum—being taken in on charity—I could kill my mother and father, I really could. All the Willis's were terrible snobs—the tilt of your girl Nan's chin in this picture reminds me of Father exactly—and the Shirleys weren't good enough for us, though they are lovely people—I found that out for myself. So they let Bertha go, and we lost you—and what a life you have had, because of it. Oh, I won't imagine Mother and Father in heaven, after this. For what they did was surely a sin."

Anne crossed the room and took Elsa Willis's hands in her own.

"Dear Aunt Elsie," she said. "Don't cry. I admit that my earliest years weren't exactly happy ones—but the happiness that I found, later, more than makes up for them. Why, think of it this way: if the Willis's _hadn't_ given me up, I'd never have had Marilla—or Matthew—or Davy and Dora, my 'brother' and 'sister.' I'd never have had Green Gables, or Avonlea—or Gilbert. He was my one true love. And if I hadn't had him, I wouldn't have my boys or girls, or my grandchildren—great-grandchildren. Your Mother and Father are in heaven now—because it wasn't their plan that made them do what they did—it was God's. If I had to lose my parents, this was the next best thing that could have happened to me. And I have never regretted anything about my life—never wished for it to be different—not even for a second."

Elsie dried her tears and clasped Anne's hands.

"You are just like your mother," she said in a low tone. "Bertha could just about speak with her eyes, like you're doing now. That's how I know you mean it. And you're like your father, too. He had a way of looking on the bright side of life, always. They tell me even when he was dying he had a smile for everybody. I'd give anything for Bertha to have lived, Anne—but in a way, I know why she didn't. Your parents loved each other—and they couldn't have lived without each other. She _had_ to go—much as it must have hurt her to leave _you_—but she had to, because she couldn't be without Walter."

They went all over the house where Bertha Willis had been a girl. Finally, Elsie led them to a large room at the end of a dark hallway.

"This was your mother's room," she said. "My father, Martin, locked it up after she went. I've been in there a few times since, to make sure the mice haven't gotten into things—but overall, it hasn't been touched in almost a hundred years—since she left it."

Elsie unlocked the door and went in, and Cecilia and Nancy wisely went downstairs with their great-great aunt, leaving Anne alone in that little room which had always been sacred to her mother's presence.

Back to the Shirleys, this time with Aunt Elsie in tow, where they had a happy dinner, and then Cecilia went out to pack the car with all of the pictures and diaries that Anne had been given. Nancy and Lee lingered on the porch—Lee was not coming back with them. Since his book had been written and accepted, he had no more pretense to use for staying at Hyacinth House. He and Nancy walked under the tall pines. Her heart was very full—the thought of Lee leaving her was almost unbearable. What would she do without his friendly, daily, comfort? In a flash, Nancy had a revelation: she realized, as she peeked up at his dear face, that she loved Lee Goddard. And that she was not afraid, even after what had happened with Rich Moore, to love him. Oh, no! She was _not_ afraid! She _wanted_ him to touch her—to kiss her—and she would not pull away from him this time. She wanted his dear face and his happy presence to surround her her whole life. Her mouth fell open in amazement, and her eyes glowed.

"Lee," she breathed, turning up to him. "Lee!"

But he only smiled at her, in the same friendly way he always had. "Nancy," he said, pleasantly, but there was none of the spark and wonder in his voice that there had been in hers. And so Nancy had another revelation: fast on the heels of the last. She might love Lee Goddard, but _he did not love her_.

She had thought he might, once: he had used to want to touch her, and caress her, and he had used to sing to her. But it had been many months since he had tried, and Nancy knew, with a shock of shame, what it was that had changed things. Cecilia had told him about Rich—and he was disgusted with her, because of it. Oh, he _must_ be! He thought, like everybody else, that she had encouraged Rich's advances—that she was sullied, because of them—maybe even that they had been underrepresented, and that Nancy had—had—well, he would not want her if he thought that. Oh, she had realized her love too late!—and now Lee did not want her. That must be it. No—she _knew_ that that was it.

"Goodbye," she said in a choked voice, and she ran, wildly, for the car. She had thought her life was getting better—that she was getting to be happy again—but she had been wrong. This thing would follow her, always. She could never get away from it.

Anne was saying goodbye with her family, with tears and many promises to visit again, soon. "Now that I've found you, you won't be able to get rid of me." The three Blythe women waved and waved until they rounded the bend and were out of sight. Cecilia, driving, looked over at her Grandmother, who was staring out of the window with shining eyes. Nancy, was cuddled down in the backseat, her face white and wan.

"Is anything the matter, Nancy-girl? Are you sick?"

"No," said Nancy faintly, and miserably. "It has just been a very long day."

"A long day—but a wonderful one," pronounced Anne. "Today I found my family—really found them—and so it is a day of beginnings for me."

It was a day of beginnings for Nancy, also. It was the beginning of her life—without Lee. She gave a little sigh and turned to the window, too—so that nobody would see the tears that streamed down her face.


	21. A Brief Encounter

It was springtime, again—the very heart of spring, with warm, mellow days, and pink clouds scuttling across the apple-green sky—the river warm and placid and rippling with good humor—fragrant breezes sweeping down Hyacinth Hill with a breath of sweetness. Cecilia gloried in the spring, Brook's first, and she was glad he was old enough to enjoy it. She took him out to the garden, and watched as he clapped his hands and cooed over the daffodils in their beds. He was almost ten months old, now, and getting to be a real beauty, which was not only Cecilia's opinion. People often stopped, when they were out together, to comment on her baby's deep dimples, and his clear brown eyes. These spring days were especially sweet for Cecilia, and she felt she must treasure them, because by next spring, Brook would have a little brother or sister running around the place. Leslie's prediction had come true—Cecilia supposed that she, too, must be developing a habit for 'kids.' She looked forward to the new arrival with delight—Marshall was positively ecstactic, and hoping for the long-awaited little girl—but all the same, she felt a little bittersweet at times. It was so _sweet_, with just the three of them, now—and she did wonder, at times, when her heart felt full to bursting over love for her boy, if she could possibly love another child as much?

Una had sent Brook a little blue sweater and cap, and he looked like the human incarnation of a fat, roly-poly bluebell as he crawled around his blanket, grasping with chubby hands at blades of grass, marveling with an open mouth as a flock of sparrows alighted on a branch above his head. Cecilia rescued him, just as he was about to pluck a daffodil from its stem, and place it in his mouth. He began to wail in fury at being so roundly thwarted, but Cecilia tickled him under his chin until he was giggling again.

"We don't _eat_ flowers, little brown boy," she told him. "Flowers are our friends, Brookie."

She took him inside and fed him, and then sang him to sleep for his afternoon nap. _Where the wild mountain thyme, blooms along the purple heather—will you go, laddie, go? _When he was sleeping, his long lashes—so like Marshall's!—brushing his cheeks, Cecilia grabbed her purse and keys and went down to where Marshall was reading in the parlour.

"I'm just going out for a while," she said evasively. "I'll be back in time for supper."

And then before Marshall could say anything she was in the car, backing out of the driveway.

She drove to a little café in Grafton, especially chosen because she knew next to nobody there. Blythe had already arrived—was waiting at a table with a cup of coffee. Cecilia had not seen him since Brook's birth, and she was shocked to find how the months had changed him. His clothes hung loosely on him—he was such a scarecrow—and his face was creased with worry. But he broke into a smile, nonetheless, when he saw her. Cecilia ran to him and just hugged him for a long while. She had missed Blythe—missed him—_missed_ him. And with all that was going on in the family, when he had called, she had agreed to meet him.

And she had not told Marshall. For several reasons. She was afraid he would not understand, and she was afraid of seeming disloyal to Manon, by flaunting her edict. But then—Manon had not said she might not see _Blythe_, had she? And also: it was _nice_ to have a secret just between herself and Blythe again, after so many weeks of no contact with him at all. Cecilia sat, and scrutinized him with a worried look.

"How are you, Blythe?"

"I'm all right," said Blythe. "Don't look at me so concernedly, little doctor, or I might think there's something wrong with me after all."

"And Manon?"

"Better—stronger—by the day."

"But still—not ready to see me?"

"No," Blythe admitted. He scrubbed his hands through his hair, and sipped his coffee. "I've been writing again," he said, suddenly. "Cecilia—I brought you some of my poems, to read."

Cecilia took the sheaf of papers he held out to her and scrutinized the first few lines. _In the interminable dusk—a scream of the nightingale—the cold, incalculable stars_. She shuddered, involuntarily at the grimness of the images presented by Blythe's words. She had never known him to write of such sad, lonely things, before. "I—I'll read them," she promised, but she knew that she wouldn't—at least, not happily. Was this how Blythe felt, inside? As though the world was cold and cruel and unhappy? Her heart turned over in her chest, and she wanted very badly to reach out to him, but knew that it would offend him if she did. He was trying to pretend everything was all right, and she must not betray him. She thought hard of something to say, but found no words.

"I've brought pictures of our new relatives," she said, finally, withdrawing the snaps from her bag and passing them to Blythe. "That's Grandmother and Aunt Elsie—isn't she a dear? Don't you see the resemblance in the eyes? And those are our cousins, Bly—Lee and Louisa and Walter and Thekla Goddard. If Merry and Hannah and Gilly were there, they'd blend right in, with their red hair, don't you think? Oh, I wish you could see Cousin Leona—that's her in the next snap—she is just what I imagine Miss Cornelia would have been like, if we'd gotten a chance to know her. Plain and practical and round as a button—and _good_. They were very impressed to find that you were a poet, and glad to have one in the family. We'll have to go and meet them sometime."

Blythe smiled over their faces. "I'd like that," he said, handing the pictures back. "What's new with you, Cecilia?"

"Nothing," said Cecilia firmly, glad that she was wearing her jacket, and that her pregnancy was still in its early stages, and didn't really show, yet. She had wanted to tell Blythe about the baby, but couldn't. "Brook is acting as if he wants to walk. He stands up and holds onto chairs, and the coffee table, but he can't quite make himself let go yet. He says 'dada' clear as day, and he persists in calling me 'Mom,' very emphatically, like a little American! We're trying to cure him of it before it sets in for good. Nancy he calls 'Nana,' and he smiles such drooly smiles at her that I'm _almost_ jealous."

"Nancy is still with you?"

"Yes—though I think she's getting a little tired of us—chomping at the bit. She hasn't been herself lately, and if she leaves, oh, I'll miss her. But I remind myself that it would be a good step for her—she's been in hiding with us. If she goes it will mean she is ready for the outside world, again. And Marshall just opened a store in Avonlea—did you hear?"

"I did," smiled Blythe, with none of his usual distaste at the mention of Marshall. "Aunt Di informs me that she chastises her neighbors scandalously when she hears of them frequenting any other establishment but Douglas's. But you're leaving something out, Cecilia. You needn't. I know you're going to have a baby—you told Joy, and you know she can't keep a secret to save her life."

"It wasn't a secret, exactly." Cecilia looked up at him, piteously. "I _meant _to tell you, Blythe. It only seemed like—like I shouldn't. Like it would be—bragging—somehow."

"Of course I am happy for you," said Blythe, stirring his spoon in his cup. But he made no move to reach out to her. He only sat very still, staring at the table, for a long while.

"Cecilia," he asked, suddenly, looking up, his eyes blazing, "Cecilia, you must help me. I—I'm so guilty. It is like a weight that presses on me every minute of the day."

"Blythe! What?"

"Manon is so unhappy—terribly unhappy—and we are unhappy together." His mouth worked and he looked like a boy again, fighting terribly hard not to cry, because he thought he shouldn't—that there was shame in it, somehow. "She isn't doing better at all. We scarcely talk. We sleep in separate rooms because—well, because. I tried, Cecilia, to be gentle with her, but it wasn't enough to erase my beastliness. When we do meet up in the hallways, or sit down at the table together, at mealtimes, I feel Manon's eyes on me, and I know she hates me for what I said, for what I did. She knows—and I know—that this is all my fault."

"Your fault? Blythe…"

"You remember what I told you, long ago," he reminded her. "That I didn't want children. When we were engaged—you did, but I didn't. Manon did—and I spared no bones telling her that I didn't. But I wanted to make her happy, and so, at last, I agreed. And then when the baby died, I remember sitting by her bed in the hospital, and when she woke up, telling her. 'You didn't want it," she said, and she looked so accusingly at me that it took my breath away. And—I know it sounds foolish—but Cecilia, _what if I didn't_? What if that is what made it happen—if that is what killed our little boy—?"

The agony in his voice was heartbreaking. Cecilia longed to cover her ears with her hands so she did not have to hear it. "Blythe, _stop_," she begged, feeling as though she would cry, herself, now. "You know that isn't the way it works. Babies come where they're not wanted all the time—you _know_ that. And underneath, I think you _did_ want the baby. You wouldn't feel this way, now, if you hadn't.

"Darling, I know Manon, in a way you don't," Cecilia pressed on, when he did not speak. "I don't mean to say I know her better—she is your wife—but I knew her at a time when she was at her worst. Blythe, I _promise_ you that when Manon said that, it is far more likely that she was thinking that you hadn't wanted to ever be in that situation, and it was _her_ who put you there. She was blaming herself, again. She thinks everything she touches turns to stone, because the world has been very cruel to her. But she was not blaming you. You mustn't think she was."

Blythe pressed his hands to his eyes. "I don't know how much longer we can go on like this," he said. "God help me. God help me. Cecilia—I think we may have to get a divorce. We are both so unhappy—any love that was there between us has withered—I don't know how. I love her so much, but I'm afraid to show it—or she doesn't want me to—or we both don't know how to do it, anymore."

"Blythe," said Cecilia softly. "I think you are depressed. Won't you let me prescribe you something? Just a little something—to help you over the worst of it."

Blythe took his hands away and smiled—a faint smile, but a real one. "Thank you, doctor," he said formally. "But I don't know. I don't."

"If it gets worse—you will come to me, though, won't you?"

"Yes—yes. I promise." He drained his cup. "And now I'd better get back—and you, too. I—I miss you, Cecilia. And I know Manon misses you, too."

Cecilia kissed him goodbye with a smile, but on the way home she had to pull off the road and lean her head on her steering wheel and cry. She hated to see unhappiness in anyone—it was torture to see those she loved in such pain. _Would_ things never be right with Blythe and Manon again? Oh, God—let it be—let it.

Marshall was feeding Brook his supper when Cecilia came home. He set the spoon down when he saw her face. "Cee—what is it? What's happened?"

"Oh, Marshall!" She let him wrap his arms around her, hold her tight. "It's so awful. I—I saw Blythe."

She could feel him smile, against her hair. "I know," he said. "Don't ever try to gamble, wife of mine."

"And—you're not mad?"

"No—I'm glad you saw him. How was he?"

"He was—he was like death. Cold and calm and—hopeless. Oh, he's so unhappy, Marshall. I really think he hates himself, now. He said that he and Manon were thinking of—were thinking of _divorcing_."

"Ah," breathed Marshall. "Ah—poor Meredith. Poor Manon."

"He wouldn't let me help him." Cecilia dissolved into fresh tears. "He won't let anybody help him but he needs help."

"He isn't ready. Cee, it isn't good for you to cry like this. You must stop immediately, honey."

Cecilia made an effort to stop the sobs that were shaking her chest. She blinked until she held her tears at bay. Somehow, just being near Marshall helped. But Blythe's face, his sad, sad face!

"I miss him," Cecilia sniffled. She didn't only mean she missed him physically—she missed the Blythe that he had been before.

"I know," Marshall said, tightening his arms around his wife. "Honey, I know."


	22. Comings and Goings

Cecilia Blythe left the house where the brook and river meet one vivid summer morning and smiled up at the blue, endless sky. She was feeling quite nice that morning—Brook had finally started to call her 'Mummy' and he had behaved delightfully when she had fed him his strained peas for dinner the night before, instead of flinging them willy-nilly across the room, as was his usual wont. Some investors in Ontario had been in touch with Marshall, and were very interested in expanding Douglas's into that province—the first Douglas store outside the Maritimes, which was a great coup. Besides that, Cecilia had had her hair cut for the first time in a year, so that her jaunty black curls skimmed her shoulders, and framed her heart-shaped face beautifully. So she was really in good spirits as she started down the steps—but then she stumbled over something and fell, hard, onto her bottom. Dazedly, she picked up the item that had caused the fall—a little potted geranium, a little smooshed and flat, now, because when she tumbled she had lit directly on top of it.

"How odd," she said, getting up, and rubbing her injured backside. "Who can have put it there?"

She set the chipped pot on the windowsill and tried to fluff the flowers back into place. That night when she returned home it was blooming steadily—and a basket of fresh-picked raspberries was waiting for her, placed out of harm's way.

Cecilia took the berries in and placed them before Marshall. "This is very strange," she said. "Someone is leaving us gifts."

"You must have an admirer," said Marshall, with a grin. "Will you make a pie, wife o'mine—if I ask you very nicely?"

The next day was a jar of beautiful, pale blue and green sea glass, and after that, a paperback by Nancy Mitford. Cecilia continued to wonder until the day after that, when she found a dozen beautiful pink roses, in a tall glass vase. She took them in, and threw her arms around Marshall.

"You dear," she said, nuzzling him. "This is your idea of being romantic, isn't it? Well, all right, I'll play along—but thank you for the roses, sweetheart. They're just beautiful."

"Cee," said Marshall, a little helplessly, "I _haven't_ been leaving these things for you. I swear I haven't—even if that will make you mad at me. I wish I'd thought of it—but you know me, not a romantic bone in my body."

"Marshall! Who is leaving them, then?"

"It had better not be Blythe Meredith," said Marshall, darkly. "I don't care if he's depressed, Cee—I'd have to teach him a lesson for crossing that line again."

"I am sure it isn't Blythe." Cecilia was quick to dissuade him. "It's likely just a patient who is grateful for something I've done, or can't pay me in cash, and is trying to make it up to me some other way."

But deep down, she was not sure—until the next morning, when she left the house to discover a beautiful flower-patterned silk scarf tied to the porch rail, the ends fluttering in the breeze. It was done in gorgeous shades of pink and mauve, and it was not very much like something she would usually wear. It was something like—like—Cecilia turned the scarf in her hands, until she found the tiny gold caduceus pin pinned to it. She had one, too, in her jewelry box, a reminder of her time overseas with the Princess Royal's Volunteer Corps. When she saw it, that is when she knew that the person who had left the geranium, the book, the sea-glass, the roses was—was—

"Manon," she breathed. "Oh, Manon!"

_______________________________

What did it mean, though? Cecilia assembled all of her gifts—all of the ones Marshall had not eaten—the flowers, the book, the sea-glass, all on the table in front of her and perused them. Were they to be taken as peace-offerings? Was this Manon's way of trying to be friends again? Or was Cecilia not supposed to know who had left these things? But then, there had been the pin! Should she call, or write—or go in person, herself? But what if she shouldn't? Cecilia sighed, and touched the pink rose petals gently. And then the idea came to her.

She went and found a pretty tortoiseshell hair clip that Manon had admired, once. She left it in the mailbox of the Poet's Cottage, for her to find. The day after that, she took a sheaf of pretty marguerites from her garden in a clay vase. And then a stack of fashion magazines, which she had picked up in town.

When she came home after leaving the magazines, she found a pair of gaudy, red plastic dangling earrings, which she pinned to her ears with a laugh. They were so _like_ Manon—and she and Manon must have passed each other in their errands. How strange—and sweet! Cecilia tossed her head, and the earrings bounced and jangled happily. She felt lighter and happier than she had in ages.

And so Cecilia Douglas and Manon Meredith's friendship, which had burned down to ashes, suddenly flared up into flame, again. But Cecilia understood that it was just a tiny, flickering flame—and that if she tried to fan it overmuch, it would go out entirely. So she let Manon set the pace, and the two women kept leaving little presents for one another nearly every morning. One day, though, there was nothing from Manon, and Cecilia began to worry. She watched—but there was nothing the day after that, either. For a week: nothing, until Cecilia almost gave up hope. But then, on Friday, a beautiful knitted jacket and cap, very tiny—too tiny for Brook. So Manon knew of the baby and yet she had still sent this! Cecilia gathered it up, and held it to her face, and used the soft wool to blot away her happy, hopeful tears.

_______________________________

Nancy stayed for Brook's first birthday in August, but after that, she would be leaving. She was going back to Kingsport, to finish her last year at Redmond. She had been at the house for a year-and-a-half, and Cecilia was stunned by the news that she would be going. Why, Nancy was one of the family, now! What would they do without her? Oh, of _course_ she was glad Nancy felt well enough to go back to the place where she had been hurt—but underneath that, Cecilia was sorry that she should have to lose a friend.

After Brook had demolished his cake with both hands, and the ladies from Hyacinth Hill had taken pictures of his every move, Cecilia brought out a second cake. _Thank you Nancy_ had been painted along the top in frosting. Marshall poured everyone a glass of cider and lifted his in a toast.

"To Nancy," he said, "Who will always have a place with us, wherever we might live. She has stuck with us through thick and thin—she has cooked and cleaned for us, she has helped us, and laughed with us, and dreamed with us, all without pay, which I suppose makes her our slave for this past year. Well, we're going to rectify that, now. Back pay, Nance—with interest."

"Oh, no!" Nancy said, as he handed her a fat envelope. "I was _glad_ to do it, Marshall, really I was."

Marshall winked at her. "Then consider it an investment in your education—or your wardrobe, college girl."

Cecilia raised her glass again. "To Nancy," she said, "May all her future endeavors be bright!"

The ladies from Hyacinth Hill had brought her presents of their own—from Miss Ada she had a glossy fur stole rescued from the attic and refurbished, and from Miss Lottie she had a book of Ibsen's plays. She cried happy tears over them both, and thanked those ladies from the bottom of her heart. When she had finished thanking them, Cecilia pulled out a parcel and handed it over.

"From Lee," she said. "I wrote him you were going, and he sent this. I don't know what it is, and the curiosity has been killing me slowly. Open it, Nancy, and let me see!"

It was a book—an advance copy of Lee's book, _A Time to Dance_. Nancy's face fell a little when she saw it, though Cecilia could not understand why. He had written an inscription to her in the front cover—_To Nancy, with many thanks for her inspiration_. But somehow, Nancy did not seem pleased with that, either.

Later, as she and Cecilia sat out in the garden, she confessed why. "I expected that he would write something else," she said, and Cecilia could tell she felt a little foolish. "I expected that he would make some grand gesture—or something—he hasn't been writing me as often as I thought he would—as I would have liked him to."

Cecilia considered this. "Nancy," she said, after a while, "Are you in love with Lee Goddard?"

In the low light, Nancy colored to the roots of her hair. "I suppose I am," she said, slowly. "Or _was_. But he doesn't love me, of that I am sure. I—I wanted to tell him—and he shrugged me off. He can't love me when he knows what…well. Perhaps I did, or maybe it was only foolishness. But either way: I am trying to get over him, slowly."

Cecilia thought of the day she had told Lee he must stop leaving Nancy presents, that he must pull back in his attentions to her, because of what had happened to her; the day he had destroyed the white roses in a fit of rage at what had happened to her. He had loved her, then, and she supposed that he had pulled back a little _too_ much—_because_ he cared for her. She reached for Nancy's hand, and tried to think of how to tell her this theory. But Nancy would not let her speak. She smiled at Cecilia.

"I have enjoyed my time here so much," she said, and from her voice Cecilia could tell that the other subject was _finis_, for now. "I have often wondered why God would let something so awful happen to me, Cecilia—and now I see that maybe it did so that we could get to be good friends—and—and sisters, as we are now, aren't we?"

"We are," said Cecilia. "Nancy, I lost a sister once—but I have gained so many others through the years since then."

"I'll miss everybody," Nancy sighed. "But I think most of all I'll miss you, Cecilia. You know I love my brothers and sister—but you have been something more to me than Merry or Jake or Walt ever were. When the chips were down, for me, they rallied round me, and tried to cheer me up—but they didn't listen, and you _did_. You always have listened to me—been willing to just sit with me, and be silent with me—and that has meant more to me than all of their well-meaning cheer combined."

"I always will be willing to sit and listen with you," said Cecilia. "I want you to go to college and have a good time, and learn lots of things—but remember, you can always come back to us, whenever you want. And wherever I am, there will always be a place for you."


	23. The Doctor and Her Patient

Miss Lottie was not herself as summer segued into fall. She was restless, listless, and she snapped at everybody, most of all Miss Ada, and so often that that good woman sent for Cecilia, for fear that something was wrong with her twin.

"There is nothing wrong with you," Cecilia said. "At least in body, Miss Lottie. But something, I think, is troubling your spirit. Won't you tell me what it is?"

Miss Lottie sighed—a big sigh, which seemed to come from the tips of her toes. "I'm just tired, is all," she said, after a beat. "I'm coming to the end of the line, Cecilia—and now that I see the end in sight, I wonder what the journey was _for_. What have I accomplished, in this world? A husband I hated—a sister I quarreled with—no children. I've never even had a job. Oh, oh, it's just that things seem a little _flat_…Lee gone, Nancy gone, and all. I'll be better soon. At least one other thing I've never been able to do is feel sorry for myself for too long."

"If you're sure, then," Cecilia said. "But I'll come up and visit you after work, tonight, and I'll bring Brook. You know he always cheers you up."

"Yes," said Miss Lottie, "I'd like that." But her smile was not exactly convincing, and as Cecilia left, she saw Miss Lottie removed an old photograph in its frame from under her blanket, and look at it for a long while. And she was almost certain she saw a couple of fat tears fall from those rheumy eyes onto the face of the man Miss Lottie loved—had always loved.

____________________________

"I absolutely won't eat them pills, and that's the last word on it," said Mr. Wittfield, crossing his arms over his chest and turning his head away. "A States doctor wouldn't make me do it—he'd only charge me for it, but let me do what I want in the end. 'Less you can tell me what's in them—and why I need them—in a way that satifies me, I'm sitting solid as a stone, here, Dr. Douglas."

"You need the pills to keep your blood pressure down," said Cecilia firmly, but feeling inside as though she would like very much to scream long and loud. "I've _told you that_, Mr. Wittfield."

"Blood pressure—ha! Sounds like a made-up something to me. I think you doctors invented 'blood pressure' to get poor unsuspecting souls to eat your pills. Back when I was in Texas, nobody cared about blood pressure, and they sartenly didn't take no pills for it."

"How many friends of yours in Texas," Cecilia asked him, "Died before their seventieth birthdays?"

"We-e-ell," said Mr. Wittfield, stroking his long white beard. "Most of them generally didn't make it there, I'll admit. But it didn't have no thing to do with _blood _pressure. They died of heart attacks, mostly."

"Mr. Wittfield, _please_. Having a high blood pressure _causes_ heart attacks."

"And so does being rich—you have to always be looking out to make sure nobody is stealing your money, and money, boy—they had it in spades." He brightened, all of a sudden, and looked at Cecilia very much in the way Walt's Jamie did when he wanted a second helping of dessert. "Look here, doctor—I'm a rich man, you know that. I told you about my oil wells—and my ranch, which my son Ty is probably running into the ground, as we speak. Wish I was there, and not this dod-gasted hotel! But my wife Ava told me afore she died it was time to let Ty take the reins. Blasted woman! I'll give you a thousand dollars, doc, if you leave off on trying to get me to take these pills."

"I am not so poorly off myself," said Cecilia, with a toss of her head. "I don't _want_ your money, Mr. Wittfield—I want you to take these pills—please? In fact—since you seem to be of the notion that I am 'fleecing' you each time I come—I will forgive your bill, if you take them. You won't have to pay me at all."

Chuck Wittfield watched Cecilia out of cautious eyes. "Oh, all right," he said, finally. "Give em over and I'll put em down my gullet. There now! Are you happy?" He opened his mouth wide, to show her the pills were gone.

"Lift up your tongue, please."

Chuck Wittfield closed his mouth, swallowed again, and then opened his mouth to show Cecilia under his tongue. "Dod-gasted woman," he said. "All of you. Well, since you're done torturing me, you might as well set with me a spell. You would—if you like me half as much as you pretend to."

Cecilia perched on the edge of the settee, and crossed her legs, inside her trousers. Mr. Wittfield watched her—he was _not_ a fan of those trousers. But he liked Cecilia and so he let it slide, this time.

"I like you awfully much," Cecilia said, "Even though you are the worst patient I've had in two years of doctoring, and even before that, in the war."

Mr. Wittfield looked pleased, instead of offended, at her remark. "Thank you," he told her. "It's a factor of me having lived in the States so long, I expect. They're a prickly bunch down there—I had to develops some stickers of my own to fit in and not get robbed blind. Say, girl—next time you come, bring that moneybags husband of yours, won't you? I'd like to talk to him about putting a Witt's station at every Douglas location. I think we could make a lot of money together, if we did that."

"I thought," Cecilia teased him. "That your son Mac was supposed to be the one running the oil business now. And don't you have enough money, Mr. Wittfield?

"I have plenty of money," he said, gesturing to the walls of his opulent suite at the White Sands hotel as though they were proof. "But that don't mean I ever had enough so that I stopped liking what of it I didn't have. And my son Macneill is worse than Ty, when it come to business."

"Why did you give him control of your company, then?"

"Because I knew I'd still be doing dealings on the side, and he wouldn't have the chance to run it into the ground! But I better live a good long while, so I'm around to do it."

"There!" cried Cecilia triumphantly. "_That_ is why you have to take these pills, Mr. Wittfield! Next time you don't want to, just _think_ of what Mac will do to your business if _you_ die of a heart attack."

Mr. Wittfield looked worried. "Have you got any more of them?"

"Yes—of course."

"Hand em over, then. I want em all."

"Mr. Wittfield! It isn't _time_ for your next dose. You take two after every meal—and that's it. I am leaving them here with you, but you must promise me you won't go talking handfuls of them at once. If you want Mac to take over the business forever, that is the surest way to see that he _does_."

Mr. Wittfield looked so downcast as Cecilia took her leave of him for the day.

"All right," he said. "Lord knows I'm glad you're going—all you do is nag at me when I see you. I'm thinking of firing you—getting that old Dr. Harper to come up here, instead of you. _He_ ain't no dod-gasted woman."

Cecilia reached out and patted her patient's withered brown cheek. "I'll be back tomorrow to see how you're doing," she said, knowing that the old man was lonely—and that really, underneath, he liked her very much. "And Mr. Wittfield, this weekend there is going to be a circus in Avonlea. I'm going to come and collect you on Saturday at noon and we'll go to it."

"Circus!" he said, his eyes lighting up. "That's kids' stuff. I won't go."

"Fine," said Cecilia. "I won't come to collect you, then."

"Wait—_wait_! Don't go. Well, you might as well come get me for it. Since you're so dead set on going I suppose I won't mind going, too. As a favor to you, of course—_just_ as a favor."

______________________________

"What a terrible old man he is, Cecilia," whispered Marshall to his wife, as Mr. Wittfield walked a little ahead of them with Brook, tossing him high into the air in a way that made Cecilia's heart revolt inside her chest—but catching him, always catching him, and the baby was shrieking with laughter. "Whatever inclined you to ask him here with us today?"

"He's so lonely," Cecilia said, feeling sympathetic toward Chuck Wittfield. "And besides, Marshall—he's a duck when you get to know him. He's had a marvelous life—he ran away from the Island in 1902 as a young man, and almost as soon as he got to Texas he struck oil. He had a wife and two sons—but his life has been very sad, of late. His wife died, and his sons, I think, are disappointments to him. They shipped him home to the White Sands so he couldn't interfere in their plans for his business. He has been away for so long that all his old Island friends, he says, are dead or moved away. This is the happiest I've ever seen him." Cecilia smiled fondly as the old man took off his ten-gallon cowboy hate—_straight_ out of a John Wayne movie!—and set it gently on Brook's head.

Marshall smiled, and put his arms around her.

"It's a good thing you're not a veterinarian, Cee," he told her. "Otherwise we'd have a house of lame animals—three-legged dogs and one-eyed cats."

But Marshall was singing a very different tune once he had gotten a chance to speak with Mr. Wittfield, at length.

"Cee, that old codger has a head for business like I've never seen before. Did he tell you his plan of Witt's and Douglas's banding together, and having a petrol station at each Douglas location? People don't want to make too many different trips, he says—'one stop shopping,' he calls it. Get your groceries for the week and gas up the car, all at the same place. Isn't it magnificent? I wonder why I never thought of it before. We're going to be rich, little wife—Brook is going to have the best of everything—and the little baby that's coming—and we're going to live in a mansion on a hill, yet."

They stopped to greet another patient of Cecilia's, Mrs. Simon Sloane, the perennial worrywart, who was always imagining her children in some danger or the other. She had four of the eight with her today—the two oldest boys, and the two youngest girls, who were only little fluff-headed creatures, aged one and three—and they must have been running her ragged, for she looked whiter and thinner than Cecilia could remember seeing her. "Hello Simon, Rob, Jessie, Ruth," she said, pulling each child's name from her memory. "Are you having fun?"

The children said they were, and raced away toward the elephant pen, and Mrs. Sloane sighed and started after them, with a lag in her step. Cecilia thought it quite possible the woman had a vitamin deficiency of some kind, and promised herself that she would look in on her, soon. But it was such a pleasant day that she forgot, and turned back to the conversation she had been having with Marshall.

"I don't want to live in a mansion on a hill," Cecilia laughed, thinking of the last thing he had said to her, his prediction. "Marshall, believe me, I don't want to live anywhere else than where we are, right now. But I knew you'd grow to like Mr. Wittfield when you got to know him. Underneath his pricks, he's got a warm, gooey center. He's an absolute teddy bear."

Cecilia was sure of this, because of how Mr. Wittfield doted on his dead wife's memory. The last time she had been to see him, he had been holding a small sepia portrait on his lap, of a woman in an old-fashioned dress, with her long hair splendidly crimped and curled. Oh, he might call her a 'dod-gasted' woman, but he loved and missed her, all the same.

"She is very beautiful," Cecilia said, and Mr. Wittfield glowered and whisked the snapshot out of sight.

"She was," he said. "She was the most beautiful woman I ever knew. But it's too late for me and her—too late. She's gone, and I can't ever get her back."

______________________________

A/N: Thanks, everyone, for the reviews! And stop worrying, please about Cecilia's baby—I have plans for it, and it does _not_ include it dying. So everybody rest easy and sit back and enjoy the show!


	24. When All is Said and Done

In early September, Cecilia received a letter from Nancy in Kingsport. She was having a wonderful time at Redmond, she wrote—and felt more like herself than ever. People were glad to have her back and told her so, and many of them also said that they were ashamed of how they had treated her back when the thing with Rich Moore had happened. Apparently, in Nancy's absence, another two girls had come forward—girls who were not as lucky as Nancy had been, to get away—girls who also had witnesses that made it so the police could not treat them as they had treated Nancy. They must take the complaints seriously, this time. So Rich Moore was now at home, awaiting trial, and so one of Nancy's wishes had been granted—he was not at Kingsport to torture her with his presence. She wrote that it was a relief—and that everyone thought she should want very badly to see Rich convicted—and she _did_, but for those other girls' sake, not her own.

_I suppose I must have forgiven him somewhere along the way_. _Or else I have managed to disconnect myself from that memory of him—or get over it, somehow. All I know is this, Cecilia—I don't __want__ him to suffer, because I don't think of him at all. He is less than nothing to me, now._

_I should go and study now—my, it feels good to exercise my mind, again—but I think of you constantly. It is not long till the baby comes at the end of November—and it hurts my heart that I won't be there for you as I was with Brook. It gives me a shuddery left-out feeling. But this is where I belong, and I'm glad I'm here. _

_By the by, I wonder if you have had a letter from Lee, lately? I saw a review of his in the_ Canadian _and it was glowing. I thought he must be pleased over it. Well, if you hear from him, do convey to him my best wishes. I haven't had so much as a card since I arrived in Kingsport. Oh, well._

Cecilia laid the letter down and wondered if anybody had mentioned to Lee that Nancy was back in Kingsport? She was sure she had forgotten. Oh, that probably explained why he hadn't written, but she could not tell him now. Lee would write to Nancy right away, and Nancy would think Cecilia had _told_ him to do it and her pride would be wounded. It would likely cause more harm than it would good. She tossed the letter aside, feeling very put out by Nancy's Blythe stubbornness, of which Cecilia also had more than her fair share.

"Dod-gasted woman," she said, channeling Mr. Wittfield.

___________________________

Speaking of Mr. Wittfield, Cecilia was liking him more and more with every passing day, though by all evidence she should _not_ like him at all. He was perpetually grumpy, and wanted his own way—nay, expected it—in everything, he thought money trumped all the finer feelings of the world, and the only type of compliment he paid was one so couched in criticism that it took some time to sift the two apart. And yet: Cecilia found him humorous, quick-witted, intelligent—his strong flavor added spice to things.

And she felt a little sorry for him. It was clear that Mr. Wittfield was used to being _somebody_, and now that he had deeded his business to his sons, he was removed from things for the first time in decades. He seemed always at a loose end—he had devoted himself so much to money-making all his life that he had no other interests, and no friends beyond business acquaintances. Cecilia thought he must be very lonely, and she took to dropping by the White Sands to see him nearly every day, outside of her professional capacity. She thought that she and Marshall were perhaps the only friends the old man had.

One day when she stopped by Mr. Wittfield was very obviously put out but would not say why, at first. Finally, after she had cajoled him into taking his blood pressure pills, he relented, and let her in on the reason for his sour mood.

"It's my _birthday_," he said, a little petulantly, "And I thought _you_ might take notice of it, but you hain't said a thing. I'm seventy-five today, though I think I could pass for seventy. Well, I suppose people think I'm past making a fuss over myself, but I'm not, more's the pity. I guess I'll just have to be content with nothing, as the usual."

Cecilia thought fast. "Oh, Mr. Wittfield," she said, as an idea formed in her mind. "Now you've gone and _ruined_ everything." She made her eyes very big and rueful. "I was going to come by and collect you this evening—for I've a little party planned—but it was meant to be a _surprise_. But you've found me out—oh, well, I suppose it will just have to be a run-of-the-mill birthday dinner, now."

Mr. Wittfield's brown face split into a tentative smile. "Well, I am sorry," he said, and he reached over and took Cecilia's hand. "I promise when I show up, I'll _act_ surprised. So I won't spoil things for the other guests."

The other guests! Cecilia groaned inwardly as she flew out of the hotel. She stopped at the front desk and asked them to make absolutely sure that Mr. Wittfield did not sneak out early and arrange his own transportation to her house. If he got there early he would surely see that it had been a last-minute affair. She would come to collect him at six, and they must not let him leave a moment earlier.

"Mr. Wittfield?" asked the porter. "Do you mean Mr. Charles DeWitt?"

_Mr. Charles DeWitt?_ The name sounded somewhat familiar to Cecilia but she did not have time to think from where. "I mean Mr. Wittfield," she said, to the porter's blank face. "I mean—oh, listen to me, if a man in a cowboy hat comes down here and wants to leave you must detain him—until I show up, at six!"

Cecilia flew home, and dispatched Marshall to the store to pick up things for a supper, and a cake. Then she flew around, getting things together, and sent Marshall over to Hyacinth House to ask Miss Ada and Miss Lottie to come to the little house tonight. If they wouldn't come, there wouldn't _be_ any other guests, and so they must come—she would go and kidnap them, if they said they wouldn't. Luckily they accepted the hasty invitation, and by the time Cecilia appeared with Mr. Wittfield, who was wearing his best ten-gallon and a jaunty string tie, they were seated in the parlour, under the banner that Marshall had put together on the fly: _HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CHUCK! MANY HAPPY RETURNS!_

Cecilia watched Mr. Wittfield's face as he took it all in. His eyes moved to the spread on the table, to the beautifully iced and coconutted cake, to the banner, to the heap of small presents on the sideboard, to the guests. And then his eyes grew very big with surprise—Cecilia rather thought he was overdoing the act. But when Mr. Wittfield spoke, it was with real shock in his voice.

"Charlotte and Adeline Ellis," he breathed. "It's you—you needn't say it isn't—I'd recognize you girls anywhere. Adeline—and _Charlotte_, after all this time!"

Cecilia was about to ask where they knew each other from, but Miss Ada answered her question before she had a chance to ask it. "Charlie!" she cried.

And that is where everything clicked. "Charles DeWitt!" Cecilia cried—it was the name of Miss Lottie's old lover—that is where she had heard it before. "Oh, Mr. Wittfield—you're not called Chuck _Wittfield_ at all, are you?"

"Born Charles Louis DeWitt," said Mr. Wittfield, to Cecilia, but without taking his eyes off of Miss Lottie, who was seated on the couch with her hand to her throat, frozen like a woman of stone, her own eyes locked on Mr. Wittfield's sun-washed blue ones. "I changed it when I moved to Texas—sounded too French to put people at ease. I took the Witt and added 'field' to it, to make it sound more American. I kept Charles, but people started calling me Chuck of their own accord. I guess they thought it suited me. Charlotte—" he crossed the room to Miss Lottie and took her hand. "You_ are_ Charlotte, aren't you?—you're as pretty as a picture, honey. You always have been. I keep your picture by my bed and look at it for a good spell every day. I treated you like a dog, honey. I _did_. But that was fifty-some years ago, and I've been sorry ever since. Come on, girl—if you are _my _Charlotte, you'll get up and kiss me."

And Miss Lottie surprised them by doing just that. Her face was wet with tears and yet she was smiling, broadly, ear to ear. The sting of Charlie's abandonment, of their old quarrel, hardly mattered to her—to either of them. They had never expected to see each other again, and their joy at meeting, beyond all odds, was too great for any petty little slings and arrows.

"So my party was a success, but not in the way I imagined it would be," wrote Cecilia to Nancy, later in the week. "It is so funny, Nance—it's like not a day has passed since they were together. Miss Lottie and Mr. Wittfield—_Charlie_—are both _young_ again, when they're together. Miss Lottie sings and dances and smiles like a girl—she's pretty, now—far prettier than Miss Ada, who is sweetly happy for them both. Did I ever describe Charlie as 'lonely?' Did I ever say Miss Lottie was 'cross?' I couldn't have. He comes up to visit her every morning and stays all day, and yesterday, when I was out walking with Brook, I think we surprised them sweethearting by the river. And today, when I went out, I heard loud voices coming from their garden. I distinctly recognized Charlie's voice raised in anger and I hied myself toward it, hoping I could dispel whatever unrest had bloomed between them. They just _couldn't_ quarrel again, and ruin it all!

"I found Charlie stalking around the garden, and Miss Lottie sitting with her brow lowered dangerously on the stone bench beside.

"'Good, you're here,' said Charlie, when he saw me. 'You can talk sense to this finicky woman. I've a right mind to up and leave and never come back.'

"'Do it—do it,' Miss Lottie challenged and I was so afraid Charlie _would_ that I stepped forward beseechingly. If he leaves again, Miss Lottie will be crushed and that will be the end of _that_.

"'Please don't quarrel,' I begged them. 'I'm sure whatever the problem is it can be dealt with quite easily.'

"'She hasn't got the sense God gave a goose,' roared Charlie. 'See here, little doctor—I want to marry her soon as possible—tomorrow if she'll let me—but she says we must do it right and wait the proper interval. Isn't that just like a woman—to want a fuss?'

"Nancy, I realized then that things really have turned out better than I had ever hoped—I realized, too, that quarreling was just Charlie and Lottie's way of sweethearting. So I crept away home, and went up to my wardrobe and took out my gray silk—the perfect thing to wear to a fall wedding, I think, if it can be let out yards and yards to accommodate my burgeoning figure.

"Miss Ada came up after supper and we sat together by the window and listened to Charlie's roar float down from the hill. '_Flowers_, woman? Who gives a rat's patootie about _flowers_?'

"'Isn't that a beautiful sound?' Miss Ada sighed, full of happiness for her sister—she really is a dear, when all is said and done.

"'The most beautiful I've ever heard,' I agreed—and Nancy, it _was_."


	25. Taking Chances

Charlie and Lottie's wedding was planned with alarming speed. Miss Ada, who liked a proper preparation time for any important function, was dismayed by the haste in which everything was thrown together, but as Charlie said,

"We've had fifty years and some to rue the fact that we _didn't_—now I say we shall, without any dithering. Adeline, sister-to-be, we're none of us getting any younger. I don't buy green bananas anymore, if you catch my drift. I want as much time with my Charlotte as I can have—well, before the Old Man Up There calls me to my long home."

The first time around, the marriage of Charlotte Ellis to Charles Wittfield had been planned as a traditional affair, with all the attendant trappings and frills. This time, they would still be married from Hyacinth House, but that was the only thing that in the plan that was the same. Most of their friends and family who would have stood up for them the first time had scattered across the country or, as Charlie had put it, had been called to their 'long homes.' Miss Lottie ran down to the house where the brook and river meet one violet twilight to talk over her plans with Cecilia.

"We're just having a simple ceremony, with Rev. Hart officiating. He's the grandson of the Rev. Hart who was going to marry us the first time 'round; he lives in Ottawa, now, and didn't want to come all the way out here, but Charlie made a donation to his church that turned his head our way. Charlie's sparing no expense on the wedding. He's flying his sons up from Texas, you know. They're dear boys—I had cables from them both, wishing me well. Charlie's apt to be a little harder on them than they deserve, I think. We're going to honeymoon in Texas, and maybe go over the boarder into Mexico, that wicked place! Cecilia—do you think we'll be very much in danger from the bandits, there?"

"I don't know if—er—there are many bandits left in Mexico, Miss Lottie," said Cecilia, who knew the older woman's perceptions of that place came from Hollywood films set in long-ago times. But when Miss Lottie's face fell, she said, quickly, "Although I am sure there are one or two still lurking in the shadows somewhere."

Miss Lottie was restored to her grim humor at those words. "Well, the ceremony will take place in the early afternoon, in the garden, if the weather holds. It's cool for early autumn, isn't it? The hyacinth won't be blooming, but Charlie's sent to California and is having them flown in from South America. There's never been a Hyacinth House wedding _without_ hyacinth—my mother and father were married in the garden, at the time of the full bloom. Charlie says he always pictured that we would be, too.

"We'll have a simple supper, after—Charlie's boys, and you and Marshall—and do you think your grandmother would like to come, too? I don't know her that well, but I've the idea I'd kind of like to see those gray-green eyes of hers shining up at me. She has the knack of looking at people like my own mother had, and I have the silly idea it would be almost like having Mother there, through her. Do you think she'd think it was silly?"

"I think she'd love to come," said Cecilia firmly. "Marshall can go and get her and bring her down here for a long visit. I'd love to see Grandmother just now."

"And tell him to get that Romy-child, too, while he's at it. I've a hankering to see her again, and she'll add a real jolly note to things. She can be my bridesmaid. And Ada, though she does like a spectacle, has refused to be my maid-of-honor—she's too old, she says, and besides, it would be a little ridiculous, given our history. So the task will fall to you, Cecilia."

"Not me!" Cecilia laughed, patting her midsection, which, it must be said, had swelled to gigantic proportions in recent weeks. "I'm big as a house, and we'd break the bank trying to find enough silk to swaddle me up decently. Not even Charlie could afford it. Oh, Miss Lottie, I'm so big and cumbersome right about now, and a maid-of-honor is supposed to be lithe and graceful. I was never so big with Brookie! I feel like an absolute elephant. Let me lurk in the background with a bag over my head, _please_!"

"I'll ask our Nancy, then, if you won't do it," said Miss Lottie. "She'll look so pretty in a dress of hyacinth blue—it will bring out those ruddy tints in her hair. She was thin to scrawny before, and I suppose she's lost even more weight at college, with her nose to the grindstone. But some girls look pretty when they're skinny, and some girls," Miss Lottie put an arm around Cecilia's shoulders significantly, "Look just as nice when they're big as 'elephants,' as you say."

* * *

Miss Lottie's predictions about Nancy, Cecilia reflected, as she watched her cousin dress for the wedding, had decidedly _not_ come true. A few weeks away at college had done the girl well. She was looking plumper than usual, and a rosy flush had suffused her cheeks. Her lips turned up easily in a smile, and when she was gowned in her blue dress with a crown of hyacinth on her shining hair, she looked like the spring wind incarnate: fresh, and sweet, and flowing. Cecilia did not want to say anything to shake her newfound confidence by drawing attention to it, but Grandmother Blythe, who was sitting cross-legged on the bed like a girl, gave a sigh of happiness.

"When I look at you, Nancy, I remember what it was to _feel_ young. For a moment, I feel just like I'm back at Patty's Place, with Phil and Stella and Priss, all of us primping for a dance. Romy, darling, come here and cuddle up to me, and remind me that I'm a grandmother, or else I might do something foolish. A great-grandmother besides! Look at baby Brook over there, in his suit and short pants. Come to 'g'andmother' too, you darling! I'm supposed to love all my progeny all equally, I know, but I'll confess to the lot of you that Brookie has a special place for me. He looks so much like Gilbert, you see—or what I think he must have looked like as a little boy."

"Don't let Mary Vance hear you say a thing like that," Cecilia laughed, pressing her cheek to her son's dark curls. "She thinks Brook is the very picture of Marshall at that age, and will have a reckoning on anybody who dares to dispute it."

"I learned how to handle Mary long ago," laughed Anne. "We ragamuffins understand each other. Nancy, don't _touch_ that curl dropping down over your forehead. You want to pin it back, I can tell. Diana Barry gave me good advice about curls like that long ago—the night I was to recite at the White Sands Concert—and it served me well, for I think it was that night that your grandfather _really_ fell in love with me."

"But I don't want to fall in love with anybody tonight, Grandmother," said Nancy curtly—and pinned the curl back, a little severely. "There's Marshall calling for us downstairs—we should go, or we'll be late."

This matter-of-factness was unlike Nancy, and Cecilia saw her grandmother's expressive eyes look questioningly for the answer behind it. Cecilia knew what it must be, based on her last talk with Nancy—but she could not say. They all went out together, and since it was only a short way, they walked the little distance to the house on the hill.

"How pretty!" said Anne, when she saw the blue house, the white tent in the garden, since the day was mild, the clouds of hyacinth, pink and blue and white, set on every available surface. From the backyard they heard the sounds of unfamiliar voices, spiced with an intriguing twang, and knew that Charlie's sons were holding court. But then, just as they were going up the walk, they heard another voice, making itself heard above all the others. It was Lee Goddard, come back from his book tour in the States to give Miss Lottie away. Nancy, beside her cousin, started at the sound of his voice, and Cecilia knew at once the reason for her strange mood.

As Nancy moved into the garden, Lee looked up, and saw her, and his heart turned over. She had not been far from him, all the months he had been away. She was the same—sweet and beautiful—but there was something else about her. Did he dare hope? But it was silly—even as he thought it, he _was_ hoping.

Nancy for her part, greeted him a little coolly. It was time for the ceremony to begin, and she took her place at the back of the garden and made her way down the white runner to the canopy where Miss Lottie and Charlie would be married. Romy danced down after her, tossing handfuls of hyacinth high into the air, with a look of evil glee. But Lee, who was right behind her, Miss Lottie's arm through his, did not even notice. Even the bride at his shoulder had no pull on him. He only had eyes for the girl in blue, and when the music started, he started toward her.

* * *

They had a merry wedding feast, with Charlie's sons holding court and making them all laugh, and then the bride slipped away with her sister to dress for the train. Miss Ada would be alone at Hyacinth House until the bride and groom came back to claim it, and then she would be going down to the house where the brook and river met, to "be our Susan Baker," as Cecilia put it, with a smile. Nancy took advantage of the commotion to slip away. Her heart had been very full this afternoon, and she wanted someplace to relieve her feelings. She found a shadowy corner of the garden, looking down the hill to the sun-blazed river, the rushes swaying softly in the breeze that stole up from the gulf. She laid her hyacinth across her lap and she began to cry, softly, soundlessly, the tears dropping down her cheeks.

Lee found her there. He approached her hesitantly. Through the long afternoon they had not had a time to speak alone together, beyond the common little pleasantries. He was surprised to see her crying, and without thinking, he took her hand in his, and knelt down beside her. She did not flinch away, as she had, so many times before.

"Is anything wrong, Nancy?"

"Oh, I've been wanting to cry all day," Nancy sniffled, with a self-reproving smile. "It wouldn't do for a bridesmaid to cry, though—my sister Merry was maid-of-honor for my brother Walt, and she bawled through the whole ceremony. It drew so much attention to her, when it should have been on the bride and groom. So I've been saving up my tears for a time when I could be alone."

"Yes—but why cry at all?"

Nancy turned to look at Lee. "I am so glad that dear Miss Lottie has found her love at last. But there is something terrible in the thought of so many years between them wasted, isn't there? They could have been together, and happy, their whole lives, but a stupid mistake tore them apart. They—they have so little time left," said Nancy, with the twenty-year-old's idea of what it meant to be old. "Oh, I'm being morbid, Lee. How is your book tour going? I've been following you in the papers—'the best-selling author, Lee Goddard.' I am so proud of you."

"It's going well," said Lee, thrilling over her pride in him. "And I'm hard at work on my next book."

"Are you? What is it going to be about?"

Lee watched the shadows playing over her face, settling in the hollows of her cheeks and throat. "I haven't a title yet," he said slowly. "But I can tell you a little bit about the plot. It is about a man who is in love with a woman—but he is not sure she could ever love him."

"Oh—how sad! It is a tragedy, then?"

Lee's green-gray eyes—the Shirley eyes—met her own. "I don't know," he told her, honestly, and meaningfully. "I haven't discerned the ending, yet."

Nancy could not mistake his words. They were talking in a sort of code, but she got his meaning, all the same. She looked down at her hyacinth, her long lashes brushing her cheeks. Could Lee still feel the same about her, as he had, in the beginning? And was she ready, to love him back? No—no! She wasn't! She had been too hurt, and she still had far to go before she could give that part of herself without fear.

But then—she thought of Miss Lottie and her Charlie. They had not been sure of each other, and time had swept them apart. She looked at Lee, from under her dropped lids. The past months at Redmond had been very busy for Nancy, and she had been happy, a little like her old self, but there had been something missing, she realized, now that it was here before her. It was Lee—his friendship—his constant, unwavering presence. She had missed _him_, and now that he was near to her some little ache, next to the big one that might always be there, had been sealed over, the missing place filled with his presence.

So many things, Nancy thought to herself, so many things in life were determined by chance! If Cecilia had not been Mr. Wittfield's physician, she might never have brought him to Hyacinth House, to meet his love again. If Rich Moore had never—had never _attacked_ her, she might even now be the old, fully happy Nancy still singing and dancing with her friends in Kingsport. She missed that girl—she felt, sometimes, as if her old self had died. And she had bargained with God, telling him that she would do anything to be that girl again. But if it had never happened, any of it, she never would have come to the house where the brook and river met. She would not have found a friend in Cecilia, in the ladies of Hyacinth House. She would maybe never have known the secret delight of cuddling a sweet little baby to her breast in his sleep. She would certainly not have learned to cook in the way that Marshall so appreciated!

And, most importantly: she never would have met Lee. Perhaps—perhaps it was true, then, what people like Uncle Jerry Meredith said, that God did have a reason for throwing certain things into your path. She had been so despairing, but she was happy, now. Maybe not in the old way, as before. But her happiness had been earned, when before it had only been _given_. It might never reach those same heights as it had before—there might always be a dark thread running through it. But she had _won _it. She _had_!

All this time, while these thoughts whirled through Nancy's head, Lee had been kneeling beside her where she sat, watching her with his green eyes. Nancy lifted her head, now, and looked into his dear, freckled face, with the sensitive, expressive mouth. What was life but a series of risks—you putting yourself forward, and hoping the world did not hurt you too terribly for it? And most of the time, it didn't, an in this case, all the happiness and beauty stood to be gained.

Nancy leaned down and kissed Lee, softly. "I know how the story ends," she whispered. "It's a happy ending, darling."

Lee took her into his arms, and together they wrote the first page in their own history.


	26. Changes

In the days that followed the wedding, Cecilia was not herself. She was droopy, and when Brook wanted to play, she told him sharply, for the first time in his life, that she was too tired. Marshall mentioned that the breakfast bacon was a little overdone, and Cecilia wept furiously into a tea-towel in the kitchen, until her grandmother, who had stayed a few days for a proper visit, found her and took her into her arms.

"Darling," she said, concernedly. "What is the matter?" In Anne Blythe's mind, Cecilia resembled nothing so much—even in her present state—as she did the little fourteen year old girl who had arrived at Ingleside, bedraggled and heartsick, many years ago. She smoothed and smoothed her hair as Cecilia cried, and reflected that, save for a few thin white threads and a deeper sense of purpose in her face, her granddaughter was just as sweet and pretty as she had been then.

Cecilia wiped her eyes. "I'm just—I'm feeling low, Grandmother. All the world seems like a muddle for some reason. We're clearing out the study to get it ready for Miss Ada to come, and Marshall has put his desk and heaps of books into our room. I hate it! I had my little house just the way I wanted it, and any change feels like a sacrilege to me. And I love Miss Ada, dearly, but I can't help feeling a little resentful: she is going to come in and usurp my kitchen, and boss the life from me. For all that I love her, she isn't _family_."

"I felt the same way about Susan Baker, once," said Anne. "And she grew to be so much one of the family that your sister was named for her."

Cecilia refused to be comforted. "I snapped at Brookie," she sighed, mournfully. "His little baby eyes were so wide and hurt-looking. 'Where is my Mummy—and who is this dragon-lady?' he seemed to be saying. Oh, what kind of mother am I? The world is blue for me today—navy blue."

"Think of happier things," said Anne, dropping a kiss on her granddaughter's brow. "Think of the letter we had from Faith, overjoyed at the news of Nancy and Lee's engagement. Of course it will be a very long one, while he finishes his book and she her degree—but they are both so very happy. And happiness is always catching, I've found."

"Of course I am happy for them," said Cecilia, drying her cheeks with the towel. "I just needed to have a little cry. Oh, Grandmother, I feel so out of sorts—I don't _know_ what's wrong with me this afternoon!"

By evening, she had an inkling. And by dawn the next morning, Marshall was placing another 'phone call to Red Apple Farm.

"Shirley? Is that you? Can you get Una on the extension? I want you both to hear this. You'll never believe it—I barely do myself. Cecilia's had a rough night of it—but 'joy cometh in the morning,' like the Scripture says. A little girl—with the bluest blue eyes you ever saw, just a shade off from purple, really—dark curls, heaps of them—and Cecilia's own little pointed chin. The surprising part? Oh—well, I suppose that's the fact that she's brought a friend with her—a sister—who's her mirror image in every way."

"Twins!" said Anne Blythe, her gray eyes shining. "Proper twins, at that! The second batch in this generation—oh, Cecilia, I _do_ apologize. Twins were always my lot in life and I've passed them on to you."

"There is nothing in the world to be sorry for," said Cecilia, restored to her good humor, with a baby in the crook of each arm. "I wouldn't trade my little dear little girls for anything. What a joke on me! I was so big, you know—and there were times when I _suspected_—but for all that, I'm as surprised as anybody. What a doctor I am—not _knowing_!"

The Glen St. Mary contingent arrived the next day. "I can already tell them apart," said Romy seriously, after an hour's acquaintance with her nieces. "_This _one is always awake—she's afraid to miss anything, you know. And this little darling," she gave a big smacky kiss to the sleeping twin, "is just as quiet as can be. She's the peacefullest baby I ever saw—nothing like your babble, little man," to Brook, who was being held up by his father so he could peep into the sleeping faces of his sisters.

"Susan was like that," remarked Una, and for the second time in a few days Cecilia felt that wellspring of feeling in her chest at her sister's name.

"I'd like to name one of them after Susan," she said softly. "I planned on it, if I had a girl. But I don't think I could _call_ her that. Just the mention of her name would hurt me terribly, each time I said it. And besides—only Susan can really be Susan, to me."

"We'll just have to pick a dandy middle name for her to go by," said Marshall. "What about that aunt of yours, Mrs. Blythe? We've used the other family names until they're threadbare—but not that one. Susan Elsa is a fine name—Ellie for short."

"Ellie Douglas," said Cecilia, testing it. "Is that what you'd like to be called, little dearheart?"

The sleeping baby opened her mouth—but not her eyes—and seemed to nod.

There was the question of what to call Ellie's sister. It seemed only fair that they honor one of Marshall's mother's Vance relatives, with her name. Cecilia braced herself, and asked Mary if she recalled what her mother had been called. Mary shook her head and dropped her jaw at Cecilia.

"You don't think I'd let my grandbaby be called after _her_, with the wallops she used to give me? Not on your life. Besides, my ma's name was Kathryn—and that's too close for 'Kitty' for my liking. My dad's name was Peter, but it wouldn't work for a girl, and he was worse than ma. I can't help you—None of the Moores, Balls _or_ Vances deserved to be affiliated with out sweet little girl. But," she added hopefully, "Mary's a nice name."

"Call her Rosemary," Una put in, selflessly. "Susan and Rosemary, for both your sisters."

"But what for a middle name?" asked Grandmother Blythe—_great_-grandmother Blythe. "And for heaven's sake, don't say _Anne_. I see your lips shaping the letter, Cecilia. For a name I never liked that much to begin with, it has certainly stuck around for a good long time. We need something new."

Cecilia hugged the babies closer to her breast and began to hum to them, a little unconsciously. Miller Douglas, who had been running one large, rough finger against the smooth skin of the unnamed granddaughter's tiny hand, spoke up softly. "I remember my mother singing that song to me when I was small. She sang like an angel. Besides that, the only memory I have of her is of her going away to town with Father—kissing me once on each cheek, 'one for now, and one for later.' She was killed on that trip, coming home—an automobile struck their trap. They sent me to Kitty, and sometimes I'd lie in bed, and reach up where my ma had kissed me, knowing that I still had a kiss in store on t'other side if it got too bad. 'One for now, and one for later,' she'd said—she had a voice like singing, even when she wasn't, my ma did."

This was a remarkable speech from Miller, who had a reputation for being even more taciturn than Shirley. "What was your mother's name?" Cecilia asked Miller, curious.

If he had said Gertrude, after that, she would have had to use it. But luckily he didn't. "Grace." Miller smiled at Cecilia—his slow, spreading smile. "Her name was Grace Douglas."

"Susan Elsa and Rosemary Grace," Marshall said, passing his hand quickly over his eyes, and smiling to hide his emotion. "I think those names fit our little girls exactly. Thank you, Dad, for the perfect thing."

"Susan Elsa and Rosemary Grace," Cecilia repeated. "Why—those names have _personality_. Not like the Peggys and Sallys and Bobbie-Jos of today, which are a dime a dozen. Ellie and Gracie Douglas. I like that—I like them both—very much."

That night the little house was very full. Anne and Shirley and Una had gone up to Hyacinth House to stay with Miss Ada, but Miller and Mary were asleep in the study, and Romy slept on a pallet downstairs by the fire. Brook slumbered off to dreamland in the nursery, and the twins slept in their bassinettes in their parents' room. Cecilia sat and watched them sleep, their little pansy-faces turned toward each other, as though they were sharing secrets. Marshall came in and put his arms around his pretty wife.

"Aren't we cozy here, darling?" he asked her, a little proud of it.

"Yes, we are," Cecilia smiled. "And I hope we shall always be this happy—all of us, together."

* * *

But by the end of the first month of the twins lives, Cecilia was singing a very different tune. Miss Lottie and Charlie had returned from Mexico, both of them with splendid sun-tans, and Miss Ada had come to stay for keeps. She occupied Marshall's old 'library' and now his desk was in the bedroom he shared with Cecilia. He stayed up until all hours looking over plans for new Douglas's locations, and Cecilia tossed and turned and fumed. _How_ was she supposed to get _any_ sleep? Whenever one of the babies started crying it set them all squalling, and then when she had settled them down and come back to collapse into bed, she had to deal with Marshall and his infernal _desk lamp_!

They quarreled about it, Cecilia being very cold and aloof, which only spurred Marshall to exasperation. "Cee! I've _got_ to work. Or else how will we live? And it wasn't _my_ idea to have _two_ babies, when we planned for only one."

"Are you saying it was my decision?" Cecilia asked coldly. "And how _dare_ you talk against the twins like that! Babies are blessings, Marshall—whether they come singly or in baker's dozens! Which one would you rather we didn't have? Ellie—or Gracie? Or maybe," Cecilia said, sarcastically—and she was _never_ sarcastic—"You'd rather _keep _them—and get rid of _me_."

"I didn't mean that—I didn't, and you _know_ it! I would never want to be without our girls—or you. Don't put words in my mouth. It's just—it's just a bit much, Cecilia, in this tiny little cottage—me and you and three kids and Miss Ada to boot!"

"Lower your voice or she'll hear you! And her feelings are so tender. I wouldn't have them hurt for the world. Miss Ada is _such_ a help to me—you _would_ be against any measure that helps me out a little. I notice _you_ never wake up when the babies cry." And here, Cecilia surprised both of them by beginning to cry, herself. Marshall went to her, a little unwillingly, and put his arms around her. Cecilia felt the sheer exhaustion in his body, and it made her cry harder.

"Don't cry, Cee," Marshall soothed her, his temper fading. "_Don't_. I know you're tired, too, and I'm sorry. This house is just too damned small for us, now. We'll have to move—though where we'll find a place is anybody's guess."

"Oh! And leave this dear little house—where we have been so happy together?" Cecilia cried harder.

"Little is the word," said Marshall, with his old smile. "We'll add onto it, a few big rooms at the back."

_And ruin the lines of the house entirely_! Cecilia wanted to wail. Instead, she wiped her eyes.

"Oh, don't speak of it—it would be an abomination. Marshall! All of this, it's only new, that's all—this cooped up, too-snug feeling. I'll grow used to it—and it will be better when I'm up and about and working again. Marshall! Dearest—let's not quarrel. Let's not ever do it again. We're happy here, and we have our children and each other, and a Miss Ada making monkey-face cookies from a Susan Baker recipe in the kitchen. We're only tired, both of us. Things will all be better in the morning."

And they were—to some extent. But Cecilia was still thinking of what Marshall had said the night before. She went about her business, reading to Brookie and nursing the twins—but it always came back to her, and made her blood run cold. _Leave_ the house where the brook and river met? _Could_ they ever do that?

"No," said Cecilia passionately, to herself. She didn't care if they had _ten_ kids. She'd find a way to pack them all in, somehow.


	27. Striking the Balance

Cecilia went back to work when the twins were two months old and was met with some disapproval. Una refused to speak of it in depth, which meant that she was shocked, but too shy to say. Miss Lottie said outright that it was unwomanly, unmotherly, a whole host of 'un' other things. Miss Ada defended Cecilia, hotly, to her sister, but underneath she might have thought that Cecilia should not be so quick to get back to doctoring, which was such a nasty business, now that she had two young infants in the house. Even Dr. Harper caught up with her, and insinuated that a young mother of two might think of hanging up her white coat and bag for good.

"I could hang it right over my diploma from Redmond Medical School," said Cecilia shortly to him. "I can go in, from time to time, and look at it, and remember six years' worth of hard work—for nothing." To Miss Lottie she said crisply that she didn't _care_ about being womanly. It was only a word, after all, one made up by men, and it tended to imply that there was only one way that a woman should be: sweet and supplicating and demurring, mistress of hearth and home. How unfair! When there were as many different things for a woman to be as—as—as a _man_!

She dealt gently with her mother's concern. "Brook and the twins adore Miss Ada," she said, in a telephone call, not caring how many people heard her speaking so bluntly over a rural line. "I dress them all and have breakfast with them every morning—then I head to the office—then I'm home for lunch. I go out on my afternoon round, and then I come home and help Miss Ada make dinner, mother. They barely have _time_ to miss me."

"But you don't _have_ to work at all," Una said, helplessly. "Marshall could more than support all of you himself."

Cecilia smiled over the concern in her mother's voice. "It isn't a question of money, Mother," she said softly. "It's doing what I love—what I feel called to do. Same as Uncle Jerry felt called to the church. If my children resent me for not being there for _all_ their bumps and bruises, I think they'll be proud of me, too. My babies are so glad to see me when I come home—and I them—I love that burst of feeling when I walk through the door at the end of a long day. I like having time to be me, though, too. And besides—my patients are so glad to have me back."

It was true—if Cecilia had had a nickel for each time she heard somebody say 'that Dr. Miner, who came when you were away, was a nice fellow but he wasn't _you_'—well, Marshall wouldn't have to work, either! She bandaged, soothed, vaccinated, bruised, and wrote so many prescriptions in her first week back that her fingers were tired and cramped by the end of it. Four of her patients had had babies since she had been at home, and old Mr. Howell had died. She was sorry that it had not been her to hold his hand, and ease him out of life.

It seemed that every single one of her patients came to see her, whether they needed to or not, just for the pleasure of sitting with her a while, and telling their troubles to a sympathetic listener. Mrs. Simon Sloane, she of the many children, was the only one who didn't. But given her past history of calling a doctor any time one of her brood suffered the smallest cough, Cecilia did not worry. Until she saw Mrs. Sloane in town one afternoon, near to Christmas. And then she did.

Cecilia had been mailing a bunch of goodies home to the Glen, and as she was leaving the post office, she brushed against an old woman. "Excuse me," she said absently, still thinking about her errand, wondering if Romy would like the knitted scarf Miss Ada had sent her. It was done in blues and greens and would look stunning on her sister, who was getting to be quite a stunner with her long blonde hair and coltish looks.

"It's quite all right," said the woman—and Cecilia's head snapped up. She recognized that voice—it wasn't an old woman, Mrs. Sloane! But _what was wrong with her?_

When Cecilia had last seen her, in August, she had noticed her looking a bit strained, but now it was so much more than that. Her skin was gray and sagging, and her hair had thinned so that bald patches showed through her scalp. She had grown skeletal, and had her hand pressed to her breast as if—as if she had a pain there. Her shoulders were hunched and she looked twenty years older than forty, which was her actual age. Her eyes were hooded and wary.

"I see you don't recognize me, Doctor. I almost don't recognize myself, sometimes."

"But Rebecca," Cecilia was shocked into using her first name. "What has happened to you?"

"Si left in October," she said, gasping a little, as if suddenly winded. "Didn't you hear? You must be the only one who hasn't. He'd been threatening to for a while. He took the older boys—Tom and Rob and Keith—and lit out West. I had the 'flu or something, right after. They say bad things come close together, that way. I haven't been able to shake it, but I'll soon be well. It's nothing to worry over."

Cecilia knew that whatever was wrong with Mrs. Sloane was not the flu. She looked into the other woman's eyes and saw that she did not think so, either. There was fear there—and pride—but there was also a sad certainty. She took Mrs. Sloane next door, to the Red Door Café, and over coffee and biscuits, managed to convince her to come with her to the hospital at the end of the week, to have some tests for 'flu-related illnesses' done.

"I think it's cancer," she confided to Marshall, after supper that night, as he held her head in his lap and stroked her weary brow. "Oh, Marshall, you mustn't tell anybody! But it's very advanced, I'd say, for her to be looking like that. Why do bad things happen to people who can hardly stand them? Nobody _deserves_ to get cancer, but certainly not a woman with five small children at home! What will happen to them, if she dies? That worthless, good-for-_nothing_ Simon Sloane can't help her—won't, for he isn't around and isn't likely to come back. Those children will be orphaned. What is to be done for her, for them?"

"Perhaps she's not so sick as that," said Marshall, balking at the bald truth of the matter.

But when the test results were sent over from the hospital, Cecilia's fears were confirmed. It was just as she had thought. She cried a little, in the privacy of her office, thinking of the Sloane children—Mark and little Danny, and Jody, and the babies, Ruth and Jessie. And poor Mrs. Sloane, who had been married when she was sixteen, and had never known anything but drudgery and neglect in her life. Had she ever had joy? Had she ever been _happy_? She was such a nervous woman when it came to her children—if she had only paid a little bit of attention to herself, this might have been avoided. But nobody ever taught her that she was worth the time, or the concern.

And, Cecilia buried her face in her hands, if she had only, way back in August, noticed the woman's pallor, her tiredness, and run those tests, _something_ might have been done to stop the spread of the disease—or slow it. But Cecilia had been aflutter over meeting Lee's family, and her own condition. She hadn't noticed. Had she killed Mrs. Sloane, by her own neglect?

She had to break the news to the woman, somehow. She drove out to the Sloane's rented house, striving to look calm and composed. But Rebecca Sloane saw the truth in her face as soon as she opened the door. Still, she invited Cecilia into the parlour, and told the kids to 'scat' while the doctor and their mother were talking. They left, all of them a little graver and more frightened-seeming than Cecilia remembered. When they were alone in the parlour, Mrs. Sloane turned to face her with her mouth set in a grim line.

"How much time is left?" she asked. "Months—days?"

"Weeks," said Cecilia softly. And then she held the woman's hand, and let her cry.

* * *

Cecilia was determined that Mrs. Sloane's last weeks on earth might be as easy as possible. She arranged for a nurse to stay with the family, and called in every day to check on her patient—sometimes several times a day. It was during one of this visits that she mentioned, gently, that Mrs. Sloane might want to start getting her affairs in order. There were her children to think of, after all. What would happen to them, with their mother _and_ father gone?

"My sister Betty will take the older ones," said Mrs. Sloane, from her place in the bed they had taken downstairs to the parlour, so that she might not be locked away in a room somewhere, away from her family. "Jody and Mark and Danny. But she won't take the babies. She's got enough of them already, she says."

"Haven't you," Cecilia persisted, "Any other family? Any family at all?"

Rebecca Sloane shook her head. "My father was like Si," she said. "And my mother died—well, of this." She gestured at her wasted body. She gripped Cecilia's hand. "I thank you, Dr. Blythe, for all you're doing for us. But I wish there was something _somebody_ could do for my little ones. Jessie and Ruth—Ruth's only two and Jessie's just a baby. They need a lot of mothering, yet. They'll need somebody who will—who will want them, and take care of them. I'd rest easier knowing that they were going to be looked after."

Cecilia could not sleep that night. Suppose she and Marshall should take the little girls? But no—they were too crowded already, and Mrs. Sloane was right—they had been through a lot and would need somebody who could devote her whole attention to them. Would Mother, or Aunt Faith take them, then? Or Aunt Di? But it was not fair to ask a grown woman to run around after a pair of energetic toddlers.

She paced the nursery floor with Gracie, who was colicky, and murmured sweet little things to her. But all the while her mind worried at the knot of her thoughts.

By morning, Cecilia thought she had an answer.


	28. A Family, Found

Cecilia sat in the driveway and stared at the cottage in front of her. Once she had been a frequent visitor to this place, had sprawled out before the fieldstone fireplace, and lingered in the sunny kitchen, cupping a mug of tea in her hands. But she had not been here in many, many months. Goodness, she realized—well over a year, now.

_Just go in_, she told herself, but she could not make her arms open the door, her feet carry her up the walk. She had not called before coming over, and now she thought that it was stupid, for the little house looked deserted, and its inhabitants might be out. But then a curtain inside the house moved, and Cecilia knew that someone was peeking out the window, had spotted her. She must go in, now, and so she opened the door and _made_ herself ring the bell.

The sight of Manon was enough to bring tears into Cecilia's eyes. She had plumped up from her dangerous thinness after she had lost her baby, but there was no sparkle—or life—in her eyes. Still, that wavy blonde hair—the two brooches pinned to her cardigan sweater—she was still so distinctly Manon and Cecilia fell into her open arms with a stifled sob. She had missed her friend—_missed_ her.

But after that first embrace, Manon was chilly. She went through the motions, asking Cecilia in, and putting tea on. They made small talk; they had never _had_ to make small talk before. Their whole friendship had seemed to be one long conversation that had no beginning or end. But that was over now—wasn't it?

"Where is Blythe?" Cecilia wondered.

"In Charlottetown," answered Manon, setting the teapot in the center of the table.

"Does it—does it have anything to do with his poetry?"

"In a roundabout way," said Manon, carefully. "He is interviewing for a job at Queens Academy—teaching English literature."

"If he gets it—will you move?"

"Yes."

"Won't you be—sorry—to leave the Poet's House?"

"No," said Manon shortly. "I'd like to live somewhere else."

They sipped their tea, a long, terrible silence stretching out between them. Cecilia's eyes lit on a painting hanging in a shaft of sunlight on the wall. "That's beautiful," she said. "Those violets are…" Her voice faded off. She had been about to say that they were the color of the twins' eyes. But she was not sure she should bring it up, with Manon.

"I did it," Manon said. "I've taken up painting, you know." She looked down into her tea, and then up, and there was a flash of her old spirit in her eyes. "Oh, Cecilia! Joy tells me that you had _twins_. What are their names?—and are they pretty?"

"They are very pretty, but I'm biased," Cecilia dimpled. "They are Rosemary and Susan, but we're calling them by their middle names. Grace and Ellie."

"Grace and Ellie," Manon repeated. "I'd like to meet them," she added, a little shyly.

"I would love for you to meet them any time."

"Did you get—the little dresses I left for them?" The package had been on the doorstep several weeks ago, and Cecilia had assumed it was from Miss Lottie—two little Spanishy-looking embroidered dresses and sun hats.

"That was you, darling? They're lovely. I—I didn't think—and there was no note…"

"I didn't want you to know, but I do, somehow, now." Manon twirled her hair. "I—I left you a lot of other little things, too, Cecilia. Flowers—and a book…it was my way of saying I was sorry, even if I could not say it myself."

Cecilia looked into the face she knew so well and felt the old love welling up in her heart. It had never gone away—it had only been sleeping, dormant, waiting for warmer times. Waiting for Manon to say it was all right. She covered her friend's pretty hand with her own. "You have nothing to be sorry for," she said, a little fiercely. "_Nothing_. Manon—I'm so glad I've come here today. I _missed_ you. But there is also another reason. Will you let me tell you it?"

Manon listened to Cecilia's story, about Mrs. Sloane and the little girls, Jessie and Ruth. About how they needed someone to take them in, adopt them. At some point she pulled her hand away—she rummaged in her pocket and took out a packet of cigarettes, turning her face to the window to blow the smoke through the crack in it. When she turned her face back, a little of the coldness was in it, again.

"And so you thought you'd ask your poor, childless friend to take in a couple of strays," she said, so heartlessly that Cecilia felt winded.

"No! Manon, I didn't think of it like that. I just thought—the girls need someone, and you and Blythe are young, and have the room. They need someone so _badly_. I didn't mean to offend—it was stupid," she fumbled for her coat and bag, tear-blinded. "I'll just—go."

Manon caught her hand. "Cecilia," she murmured. "I'm sorry. I—I just need some time to think, and to discuss it with Blythe, of course. I'll let you know when—I've thought about it a little more."

Cecilia drove home, stopping at the Sloane's on the way. Mrs. Sloane was dying—actively dying. It had started yesterday, in the evening. When Cecilia had stopped by she had seen the blue cast to the woman's lips, heard the ragged catch of her breath that forecasted the end. She had given the dying woman a shot of morphine, and she gave her another, now. Mrs. Sloane lay with her little girls on either side of her. Ruth, the oldest, was telling her a story, and Jessie, the baby, with the golden curls, was snuggled down beside her.

And Mrs. Sloane—she looked—why, she looked happy. The morphine had smoothed away some of the lines of pain in her face, and but the others had faded in a rush of love. Cecilia had seen enough deathbeds to know that at the very end the world got very small, and large, at once; there was no place in it for petty worries or cares. She had succeeded in making the woman feel comfortable, at last, and in reassuring her that the girls would be taken care of. And they would, Cecilia vowed, even if she and Marshall had to take them in, themselves.

But as it turns out, she did not have to. When she got home that evening, Marshall came to meet her. "I had a phone call from Manon," he said.

"What—what did she say?" Cecilia's heart had leapt into her throat.

"She wanted me to give a message to you. I wrote it down." Marshall handed her a piece of paper and Cecilia unfolded it to read one word: _Yes_.

* * *

Mrs. Sloane lingered until the new year, and then died one perfect, crystal day, with her children around her. Cecilia was there, at the fringes of the group, but close by the woman's bedside sat Manon Meredith. In the final few weeks of Rebecca Sloane's life, she and Manon had become good friends. Manon had been at the house every day, getting to know her daughters, and helping in a thousand small ways that reassured Mrs. Sloane about the woman who was to be their mother after she had departed this earth. Blythe came too, as often as he could with getting ready for the spring semester at Queens. He would be commuting twice a week to teach a special class in poetry composition, until they found a place in town.

Both of them had decided to reach out to the Sloane girls, out of a sense of duty, and charity. But what they did not bargain for was falling in love with little Ruth, and Jessica. They began to look forward to seeing them every day, learning more about their darling personalities. Ruth was solemn, and serious, for a two year old, but with a wild streak that matched her curly sparrow-colored hair. She was prone to imaginative sprees, and talked them over with her father-to-be, who treated them as seriously as if they had been fact. One afternoon she told him that she was worried about 'the mice family that lived under the stairs.' Mr. Mouse, Mrs. Mouse, and their six mouse children were very happy that she, Ruth, was going to a nice new home, but they had told her specifically that they were worried for themselves. Who would leave them crumbs, now that she was going?

Mrs. Sloane heard this tale and told the Merediths embarrassedly that there were no mice in the house, for it was clean, and she had always taken pains to see that all mouseholes were plugged up. Blythe understood that Ruth's people lived in her imagination, but were no less real for all that. He told her gravely, privately, that he had spoken to Mr. Mouse himself, and offered him free tenure in his own garret, and Mr. Mouse had gladly accepted. Ruth thanked him, with a matching twinkle in her eye, and then put her tiny pink hand into Blythe's brown one, and from that moment on, 'Father' and 'daughter' were fast friends.

Jessie was a cuddly kitten of a girl, just a year old, and it was she who caught, and held, Manon's heart. She was still a baby in many ways, and since her mother was so sick, it was Manon who held her and rocked her to sleep in the evenings. Manon had not dared to hope that she would ever sit like this, with a dear little bundle in her arms, after her own disappointment. Jessie's fingers wound about Manon's curls, and she sucked her thumb and closed her eyes to the little French ditties that Manon remembered from her own childhood.

After the children were in bed, Mrs. Sloane was still wakeful, sometimes, and Blythe and Manon sat with her, one on either side, and let her tell them about her youngest daughters: their whole, short histories, the times they had been sick with measles and whooping cough, their first words, the things they had liked and disliked as infants. And so, in this way, Blythe and Manon Meredith felt that they had known the girls who were to be their daughters from the very start of their lives, and Mrs. Sloane saw, from their attentive faces, that they would love and protect her children all the days of their lives.

The adoption papers were submitted, and Mrs. Sloane used some of her precious last words to tell the Merediths that she preferred it if the girls took their last name. "Sloane isn't anything to be proud of," she gasped. "And I want them to _belong_ to you. If you could only—give them _my_ family name, as their middle name—so that they don't forget me…"

So it was Ruth Howard Meredith and Jessica Howard Meredith who came to live at the Poet's House the day after their mother's funeral.

The girls were so tired by the last few days' events that they were already nodding as their new parents carried them up the stairs to the nursery room that had been so hastily prepared for them. It was not the wonderful chamber Manon had designed for her own child—there had not been time for all that—but it was clean and sweet, as a little girls' bedroom should be. They undressed the girls and got them into their nightgowns, and laid the sleepy, murmuring figures on the bed, tucking the covers up around their shoulders. Then they stood together and watched their daughters sleep.

Ruth stirred and said, "Manon." But it was garbled by sleep and it sounded much like _Maman_, the French endearment for mother. Tears sprang to her eyes, of sorrow for the woman they had buried the day before, and gratitude to her, for bearing these two girls who were, in every way but blood, her daughters.

Manon closed her eyes. In her mind, a stream of pictures took shape before her. In the morning, her girls would come downstairs and they would make _crepes_ for breakfast together. Later they would go together to the house where the brook and river met, and be introduced to their cousins. Brook would be glad for a playmate his own age. Sometime soon they would go together to the Glen, and the girls would sit on Great-Grandmother Blythe's knee, listen to Grandfather Meredith tell the thrilling story of Daniel in the Lion's den. They would play in Rainbow Valley. They would go together, one day, to France, and Manon saw her girls, older, speaking French with perfect accents as they explored the land of their _maman's_ birth.

She saw further into the future. She saw Ruth preparing for her degree at Redmond college. She saw Jessica as a bride, descending the stairs on her father's arm, filmed in white. She saw herself, an old woman, going forward to meet death bravely, with a daughter at each side, holding her hand. She saw a host of wonderful things in store for them all.

Manon opened her eyes and saw that Blythe had seen what she had seen. He put his arm around her. "Thank you, Rebecca Sloane," he whispered.

"Thank you, Cecilia," said Manon through her tears. "And thank you, God—thank you most of all, for sending us to them."


	29. Goodbye

"'Lo, Cecilia? Is that you?"

"Yes—yes." Cecilia was holding a screaming Ellie with one hand while she fed Gracie her breakfast cereal with the other. She had the telephone receiver wedged between her neck and shoulder, and it slipped down and she could not get it. "Brookie!" she called to the little boy, who was standing at the window, staring out at the beautiful spring day. "Brook! Help Mummy—_please_. There—thank you, darling. Uncle Jem?" she said, into the mouthpiece. "Is that you?"

"Yes indeedy—sorry to bother you at what sounds like a crucial point. Are you being scalped by wild Indians over there—or is it just the usual breakfast round, with three children, two of them teething babies?"

"The second thing," Cecilia laughed. "What can I do for you, uncle o'mine?"

"Wanted to let you know I was coming up to your part of the Island on Wednesday. Can a busy country doctor spare an hour for lunch with an old man?"

"She can. But what are you doing in Bright River, Uncle Jem?"

"I'm coming to see you," said Jem Blythe, as Gracie upended her cereal bowl on her tray, smiling broadly. "There's something I have to ask you, Cecilia."

"What? What is it?"

"See you on Wednesday," said Jem, and hung up.

* * *

Marshall was surprised, when he came home Wednesday evening, to find the house dark and quiet. Miss Ada had taken the babies up to Hyacinth House after lunch, and Cecilia was sitting in the empty kitchen, at the table, with her chin on her hand. She did not noticed her husband come in until he bent down to kiss her.

"Uncle Jem came to see me today," she said, with no further preamble, her eyes wide and a little sorrowful. "Oh, Marshall—he's not well. It's his heart. He's not in any real danger! Though he wants to retire, and he came to talk to me about somebody taking over his practice."

Marshall sat down, reeling from her abruptness. "Who does he want to take it over?"

Cecilia's lips curved in a rueful smile. "Me."

"_You_!"

"And I told him that I would, if you agreed to it," Cecilia added.

Marshall was stunned. He loved their life in Bright River, but he had never expected it would be a permanent move. He had been wanting to go home to the Glen for some time.

Marshall sat back in his chair, limply. "But Cee," he said, in a stunned voice. "I thought you never wanted to leave this place."

"I didn't."

"What has changed your mind?"

Cecilia smiled—a slow, soft smile. Sad, too. But her voice was bright as she spoke. "I never would be a doctor at all if it wasn't for Uncle Jem. He paid my room and board while I was at Redmond—Daddy couldn't manage more than tuition out of the farm's earnings. I owe him, I suppose I'm saying. But it's more than that. There has been a 'Dr. Blythe in Glen St. Mary for a hundred years—Dr. Dave, Grandfather, and Uncle Jem. I'm technically Dr. Douglas, but the spirit of the thing would be the same. It would seem awful if a stranger were to come in and take over all of their hard work, wouldn't it?"

"What," asked Marshall, slowly, "What about your practice here, Cee?"

"Dr. Harrison can manage it. And Dr. Minter, who came to fill in for me while I was home with the twins would gladly stay on. He's already been sort of planning on it."

"So we would move? Do you have a place in mind?"

"The old West House, I think, would do very nicely for us," Cecilia said, tears beginning to well in her eyes for the first time. "It is so centrally located, half-way between the Glen and Four Winds, and close to the Lowbridge road. And it's large enough—six bedrooms!—to accommodate our growing family. Miss Ada could have her own little suite of rooms in the attic—the old housekeeper's quarters. And I have to admit, Marshall, that that house has had a pull on me since the day we visited it with Brookie, a year and a half ago. It will never have the same sweetness for me that _this_ place has, because it was the place we began, together.

"But even here is not the same for me as it was. Blythe and Manon are going, moving to Charlottetown with the girls. I'd like to be a little closer to them. Hyacinth House belongs to Miss Lottie and Charlie, now. Nancy and Lee will be married this winter, and they will start housekeeping themselves, and won't be able to run up and visit us like they used to. And I'd like to be closer to Mother and Father. If we live in the Glen, they can run over and see us every day. Your parents, too. I want Brook and the twins to _know_ Ingleside, and Grandmother, not just have a shadowy memory of them. And Romy is growing up, and I feel so distanced from her, right now. What use is a sister if you never get to see her? I don't want her to be lonely as I was, for so long, after Susan's death. If Uncle Jem had never asked me to go, I might have stayed here forever. But now that he _has_ asked me, I see it's the right thing." And yet, the tears were streaming down Cecilia's cheeks faster than she could check them.

"Oh, Marshall, I hate it when things change. I know it's the right decision, and I can see you feel it, too. You've been wanting to go for some time. But we have been so happy here in our 'umble little 'ome, haven't we? I hate to think that one day these happy years shall seem like a distant memory to us. I hate to think that this sweet house where the brook and river meet might forget us, too."

"It won't," Marshall said, putting his arms about her. "We've left our mark on it, for better or for worse. And we'll never forget it, Cecilia, because I'm going to buy it. No, let me be extravagant for once! We can well afford it. We'll keep this place up, and we'll give it to Nancy and Lee to begin in, if they'd like. I think they will—it will hold an attraction for them, for this is where they first met. And then once they've moved on a little farther afield, to a place of their own, we can come to it, from time to time, to get away for a weekend. And then, when you are a very old lady with white hair, I'll bring you back here, and at the end we'll be just as we were, at the start: the two of us together, in our little house of dreams."

* * *

There was much to be done, and in only a month. The West House had to be aired and caulked and painted and fixed up. It was much bigger than their little house, so furniture had to be chosen and ordered and bought and installed in the rooms. Everyone in the family had something to contribute. Uncle Jem and Aunt Faith gave the pretty brass beds that the Ingleside twins had slept in, long ago, for the West House twins, when they graduated from cribs to beds. Grandmother Blythe had a couple of braided rugs, done by Marilla Cuthbert upon the occasion of her marriage, plus a pretty cotton warp quilt, vintage of Mrs. Lynde, that Cecilia refused to put to everyday use. It was so pretty, and so fragile, now, with age, that she had it cleaned and restored and framed, to make a wall hanging of it. And Gog and Magog would grace the mantel of the beautiful fieldstone fireplace that took up one whole wall of the West House living room.

Cecilia conducted all of her daily doctoring duties, and still was involved in every aspect of the preparation of their new home. She studied paint wheels to choose just the right, buttercreamy colour for their parlour—a deep, burnt orange for the dining room, with white molding—a sunny yellow for the kitchen, pinks and blues for the children's room. The only area of the house that she did not touch with Miss Ada's quarters, and that good-hearted woman was allowed to choose what she wished, and choose she did, a vibrant, livid purple for the walls, with red and pink rose-chintz for the coverings. All in all, it was a terrible, eye-jolting little chamber but Cecilia grinned to see how happy Miss Ada was with it. Miss Lottie had ruled the roost over her twin for their whole lives—much as little Gracie tended to do with her more reserved twin—and Miss Ada was tasting of true freedom for the first time.

Miss Lottie was terribly offended that they were moving, muttering under her breath things about being left behind. Until Charlie bought a new car and engaged the services of one of the Gillis boys to be Miss Lottie's personal driver. Cecilia extended an invitation—Miss Lottie might come and stay in their guest room at West House whenever the mood struck her to come, and that lady's heart was much soothed. Only on the day that the Douglases were to leave, she cried, as she embraced them all, in turn.

"You've been a dear girl to me—almost like a daughter," said Miss Lottie wistfully. "You've given me so much joy—and you brought my Charlie to me in the end. We're going back up the hill now, and then I'm going to lock myself into the bathroom until you're gone. I don't want to be here, or even see you, as you leave. It's bad luck, and heaven knows I wouldn't wish you that. Besides," her stern voice quavered, "I don't think I could stand to see you drive away."

Miss Ada had gone ahead with Una and Shirley and the twins, so that only Cecilia and Brook and Marshall were left behind. Cecilia walked one last time through the house where the brook and river met. No—not the last time—they would be back, often, to visit Nancy and Lee, who had taken Marshall's generous offer. But all the same, she would not come _home_ here again—at least, not for many, many years. She touched the window casements, delicately. Here she had sat, dreaming, looking for Manon to run up the lane.

In the kitchen, right in this sunny nook, she had sat with Nancy and they had dreamed together. Here, in the hall, was where she had felt Brook kick for the first time. And in the little, south-facing room upstairs, she had become a mother three times over.

As she went back down to the front room, her fingers swept over the polished wooden banister. She had not been able to resist it, once, and had slid down like a little girl, Marshall coming in at that moment to surprise her. How he had teased her over it! Cecilia laughed, remembering, but there was a lump in her throat as she stepped out onto the porch, where she shut and locked the door. They had never locked their door before—there had been no need to. She hated to do it, now.

She stood looking up at her house, and she felt, in some way, that it was watching her, too. She heard the brook babbling on its way, and turned her head to catch the glimpses of molten sunlight on the surface of the slow-moving river. The hyacinth were blooming up the hill, and the scent swept down to where they stood.

"I won't say goodbye, dear little place," Cecilia whispered. "For we'll be back to you, as often as we can."

But she did lean down and kiss the wide stone step. Then Cecilia took Brook's hand. Marshall took the other, and they walked down the lane together, pulling the gate closed behind them.


	30. Epilogue

_March 1966. Rainbow Valley. _

A tall, slim boy, half-past fifteen, was sprawled out with a book on the green grass, next to a little bubbling spring that was the same color as his clear brown eyes. He was a very handsome lad, with a softly cleft chin, and a thatch of darkling curling brown hair. For his beloved great-grandmother, seeing him was a shock to her system, sometimes—her declaration that he looked like his great-grandfather had only grown stronger as the years passed. And he, too, had something of Gilbert Blythe's practicality and seriousness—but also his humor. Brook Douglas flipped over the last page of _Kim_ and then laid the book aside to dream for a little while of hot Indian lands, of elephants and palm trees, and men in turbans.

Next to Brook sat a little lass of his age, with sugar-brown braids, grey eyes, and a sweet little mouth. She was very beautiful—it was a good thing that she had to wear spectacles, or else Ruth Meredith would have been _too_ pretty for her father's comfort.

Besides her prettiness, she was a very accomplished girl. She had led her class at Queens for the year before, and played the viola and spoke fluent French, to boot. She had had the opportunity to practice her French very recently, during a family trip to the land where her _Maman _had been born. The Merediths had cut their trip short to be here, today—they would not have missed this day's festivities for the world.

Ruth was Brook's especial friend, and had been her whole life. Wherever you found one, you found the other. And then, when they were together, they only had eyes and ears for each other—except when Ruth darted little glances down at the two young girls playing by the water's edge a little ways away.

"Jessie!" she called now, shading her eyes. "Gracie! Don't _dunk_ little Matthew in the water like that. It's far too cold--and Aunt Nancy will have your hides if you bring him back to the house, all wet, today of all days, too!"

Jessica Meredith waved back, and whisked the toddler out of the water, began tickling his feet. Ruth's parents were not her _biological_ parents, but people always forgot when they saw Jessie and _Maman_ together. They looked so alike, with their fair curls and they even acted alike, with their impetuous, winning ways. Gracie Douglas, on the other hand, was a wild-cat—not much like steady Aunt Cecilia, but there was hope that she would mellow with age.

Under a spring-leafed birch tree sat Grace's twin, Ellie Douglas, with a paper and a box of paints spread on the grass before her. Ruth got up, brushing her skirt, and smiled as Brook tried to catch one of her slim ankles. She stepped out of his grasp and went over to see what Elle was doing. She was such a quiet thing that people oftentimes forgot that she was around.

"What are you working so intently at, darling?" Ruth asked, crouching down to look at Ellie's project.

"A card for Great-Grandmother," said almost thirteen-year-old Ellie. She held up her page so that her cousin could see it. She had painted a picture of the whole family, and above it, the words, _Happy 100__th__ Birthday, Great-Grandmother Blythe_!

"I thought we could all sign it," she smiled. "And then Great-Grandma could keep it by her chair, and it would be like we could all be near her, even when we aren't."

"I think that's a great idea," said Brook, coming over to investigate. He tweaked the ends of his sister's dark hair, and smiled cheekily at her. "You're a great girl for remembering other people, Elsa Douglas. But you should think of yourself sometimes, too."

"Oh, I have," said Ellie with a small smile. "Grace came in this morning and wanted to steal my green dress to wear to the party tonight. But _I _wanted to wear it myself. Jamie," the girl flushed as she named her cousin, tall, dark James Blythe, grandson of Jem, "Told me he would dance with me, and it's my swingiest skirt. I told Grace she'd have to wear her blue. But she says she's going to wear her _bathing suit_."

"She won't," laughed Ruth, "If your mother has anything to say about it. But Grace has a mind of her own, doesn't she?"

"Gee, it's a long time until the party," Brook said, looking up at the sun which was directly overhead. "I'm hungry, aren't you? I'll get my fishing rod—we'll have a little lunch."

A Rainbow Valley lunch was nothing new to these youngsters, who had spent most of their happy times together here. They had had picnics here many times before, and all knew their duties. Brook got his fishing pole and he and Ruth set to their task, dangling their feet in the brook. Ruth baited his hooks for him and Brook smiled at her. She really was a capital sort of girl—he'd never met a girl yet who could hold a candle to Ruthie. Grace, a Girl Guide to the very core, set up a campfire on which to roast their fish when they were caught. Ellie spread a picnic blanket on the grass and anchored it at each corner with a rock while baby Matthew Goddard sat in the middle, clapping his hands and laughing at the faces she made for him. And Jess Meredith ran up to the house to raid the pantry—she was the cutest, nobody could resist her. And besides that--she had such quick little fingers.

Anne Shirley Blythe, on the one-hundredth anniversary of her birth, sat by the window in the Ingleside parlour and smiled as her great-grandchildren's happy laughter came to her on the breeze. She was so fond of all her young people—she liked having them around—they _kept_ her young. Jess Meredith paused long enough to blow her a kiss before skeddadling into the kitchen, where Anne heard her daughters, her sons' wives, her granddaughters laughing together as they whipped up delicacies for the birthday feast. The men folk were on the lawn, setting up tables and chairs for all the Blythes, Merediths, Fords, Willises, Goddards and Douglases who would be attending that night's festivities and their voices and laughter blended together in a stream of sound.

Anne closed her eyes. For a moment, she was young Mrs. Dr. Blythe again, with her own children playing down in Rainbow Valley. One hundred years old! She had never planned to reach it. At one-hundred, you sort of ceased to be a person, somehow, and were more of an _institution_. Oh, to be Anne Blythe, mother and wife, again! Or even Anne Shirley, racing through the Avonlea woods with treasured Diana at her side!

But then Anne opened her eyes. It had been sweet to be Anne in all her iterations. Anne of Green Gables, of Avonlea, of Kingsport; Anne of Windy Poplars, Anne of Four Winds, of Glen St. Mary. Anne of the early Ingleside days a new wife and mother. But for all that, it was even sweeter to be Anne of _right now_, surrounded by all these handsome men and women, these dear-hearted boys and girls. The orphan, who had started out in this world alone, now found herself surrounded by descendents who, like Abraham, were as numerous as the stars in the sky. If only Gilbert could see them all, this family they had made, together! But then--she was sure he could see them. She knew he was looking down on them, from somewhere. She would go to meet him soon, but not for a while yet. She grinned as she heard the women's voices protesting as Jessie carried off some delicacy for the Rainbow Valley picnic.

"What a family!" Anne said—as she had said it once, before.


	31. Family Tree: By Request

"DavyKeith" asked me to post a family tree, so here is the one I made up for reference while I was working on this story:

Anne Shirley (b. Mar 1866) married in 1891 to Gilbert Blythe (b. 1864, d. 1946).

**THEIR CHILDREN:**

**JAMES BLYTHE** (b. 1891) married in 1919 to Faith Meredith.

-Walter Cuthbert Blythe (b. 1920) married in 1946 to Cornelia "Nellie" Douglas, daughter of Miller and Mary Douglas. One son, James Blythe (b. 1947) and one daughter, Mary Anne Douglas (b. 1950).

-Meredith Blythe (b. 1921) married in 1945 to Kinsey Dark. Lives in New York, is a writer.

-John Knox "Jake" Blythe (b. 1924)

-Anne Shirley "Nancy" Blythe (b. 1930) married in 1958 to Shirley "Lee" Goddard. One son: Matthew Goddard, b. 1964.

**WALTER CUTHBERT BLYTHE** (b. 1892, d. 1916)

**ANNE "NAN" BLYTHE,** (b. 1894) married in 1920 to Gerald "Jerry" Meredith.

-Joyce Meredith (b. 1921) married to Jacob Penhallow in 1946. Three daughters: Rose Anne Penhallow (b. 1947), Margaret "Daisy" Penhallow (b. 1948), and Gabrielle Alexandrina "Poppy" Penhallow (b. 1949).

-Blythe Meredith (b. 1922) married to Manon Delaroux Ford in 1947. Two adopted daughters: Ruth Sloane Meredith (b. 1951) and Jessica Sloane Meredith (b. 1953)

**DIANA BLYTHE **(b. 1894) married in 1922 to Jack Barry Wright, son of Fred and Diana Barry Wright.

-Bertha Anne Wright (b. 1924) married in 1945 to Jordan Gray (see BERTHA OF GREEN GABLES). Two daughters: Hester "Tess" Gray (b. 1947) and Virginia "Ginny" Gray (b. 1949).

-Frederick "Teddy" Wright (b. 1924)

**SHIRLEY BLYTHE** (b. 1896) married in 1921 to Una Meredith.

-Cecilia Margaret Blythe (b. 1923) married in 1950 to Marshall Douglas, son of Miller and Mary Vance Douglas. One son, Blythe Bryant "Brook" Douglas (b. 1951) and two daughters, Susan Elsa Douglas and Rosemary Grace Douglas (both born 1953).

-Susan Baker Blythe (b. 1930; died 1937).

-Rosemary Blythe (b. 1940)

**BERTHA MARILLA "RILLA" BLYTHE** (b. 1899) married in 1919 to Kenneth Ford, son of Owen and Leslie Ford.

-Gilbert Ford (b. 1920) married in 1946 to Catharine Douglas, daughter of Miller and Mary Vance Douglas. Two daughters: Lillian Ford and Vivian Ford (both born 1949).

-Owen Ford (b. 1923, d. 1944) married in 1943 to Manon Delaroux.

-Gertrude Olivia "Trudy" Ford married in 1945 to Blair Stanley King, son of Bev and Sara Stanley King. Two daughters: Sara "Sally" King (b. 1948) and Alexandra King (b. 1950).

-Anne Shirley "Hannah" Ford (b 1930) married in 1947 to Jonah Davies.

So Anne and Gilbert have fifteen grandchildren, and seventeen great-grandchildren, by the end of the also, we have two other relevant pairings:

**PERSIS FORD** (b. 1897) married in 1921 to Thomas "CARL" Carlyle Meredith.

-Leslie Meredith (b. 1923) married in 1943 to Douglas Hart. Three children: Johanna Hart (b. 1945), Duncan Hart (b. 1947), Petra Hart (b. 1950) and Cecilia Hart (b. 1951).

-Kent Meredith (b. 1928)

**BRUCE MEREDITH** (b. 1909) married in 1938 to Penelope Branston. (see CECILIA OF INGLESIDE).

-Iris Marcia Hart (b. 1941).

Whew! That's all for now. I don't want to go any further with these characters than what we've covered in the stories, because I might want to write about some of them again someday!


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